I don't want to be 45 years old and have been a hot actor when I was 33 and have people going, 'Whatever happened to Fishburne?'
— Laurence Fishburne
Do mainstream crowds want to watch a movie about good things happening in black neighborhoods? Do black audiences want to see a little girl doing something in a white world?
Playing solo with an audience for an hour and 30 minutes without a break means I have to, as the jazz cats say, get into the shed and work on my chops.
Back in 1978, when I was still in high school, I went to see a Broadway show, 'Paul Robeson,' starring James Earl Jones. It was all about Robeson's journey as a human being, an artist, a champion of civil rights. Had I not seen the play, I might not have known who Robeson was. I was certainly never taught about him in school.
I can't imagine not coming back to the theater. It's where I started.
I don't believe in acting teachers for me, so it's God's joke that he gave me a best friend who's an acting teacher.
There's great theatre in New York City, but no New York City in theatre.
Obviously, after 'The Matrix,' it was a case of, 'OK, I did that. What's next?' I mean, it's always like that, but more so this time. How do I change it up? How do I keep it interesting for myself?
We are our children's first teachers.
My production company, what we are trying to do is I'm trying to create content that speaks to me, and it's not one color. It's not one size fits all.
I've been around long enough now and have learned to be flexible enough to know that every movie isn't going to be 'Apocalypse Now,' and every director doesn't have to be Stanley Kubrick.
I'm left-handed: I can think and feel at the same time. My feminine side is very highly developed.
I always wanted to play a cowboy. I just didn't get to do it the way I thought I would.
It's my luck that I was born a bit of an old soul, and it's served me well.
I certainly believe that being in contact with one's spirit and nurturing one's spirit is as important as nurturing one's body and mind.
Having 50 to 60 years on the planet should give you a sense of how to master the way you look and live your life.
I learned tolerance at a very early age.
There's a bunch of plays that I never got to do because I was either too young or too old for the parts, like 'Slow Dance on the Killing Ground' and 'Dutchman.' For 'American Buffalo,' I was the wrong color.
I carry a lot of feminine energy as well as masculine energy, and that's the hit that people are getting. That vulnerable thing is not what we assume with black males. You get it, and then they cease to become scary. They become human. You cease to have a bogeyman.
Some people think of me as an actor and some as a movie star, so I sort of guess that makes me both. I love making movies, and I love playing on the stage.
After 'Othello,' it was, like, 'I can stop acting. I have played one of the great characters in the English language. I feel I have played him well and honorably. I have nothing to prove anymore.'
I was a child actor but not a child star.
Jesse Eisenberg, this little nebbishy guy, as Lex Luthor? For me, that's a genius move.
All I know is, I'm trying to do things that are a little different whenever I can.
Most of us are afraid of our success, that we will actually be great.
What I continue to learn as a parent is to be mindful of the fact that I am responsible for being the parent that my children need me to be and not necessarily the parent I want to be.
As an actor, Coppola trained me. That was my training ground.
When I was ten, I did a play at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse, Charles Fuller's first play. He went on to write 'A Soldier's Story,' among other things. I realized, 'Oh, I can be anything doing this.'
A smart black guy is confronting for most people. But that's on them, not on me.
I'm passionate about all the things I do, really.
I have a relationship with the southern hemisphere that's a really good one. I love it there.
The 50s are the age of elegance. That's kind of my intention when I get dressed: casual elegance.
On a motorcycle, you can't really think about more than where you are. There's a freedom that comes with that - from stress, worry, sweating the small stuff.
I think there's going to be many special episodes of 'Blackish.'
It's important for a lot of young black males to value swagger over intelligence. Swagger is important, but intelligence must come before the swagger.
There's a lot of stuff that's not good that's touted as being good.
I return to the stage first and foremost because I'm an actor, and I love it.
I see that I have, as part of my stock in trade, a very regal personality and carriage. I see that I have a kind of strength, a kind of command, and a kind of power that one would associated with a monarch.
I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn't have any scenes with Marlon Brando, but I had scenes with Martin Sheen and was around Dennis Hopper, who was a child actor in the studio system and was enamored of James Dean, as was Martin, and they were all sort of disciples of Brando.
I have heard a lot of people talk about this grind of series television. I have not seen it yet.
You can't go looking for another one of those franchises. You only ever get one of those. You get 'Stars Wars'; you get 'Indiana Jones' or get 'The Matrix.' I've had my franchise.
Hiding a talent is not exclusive to any one particular group of people: young, old, black, white, Latin. It doesn't matter. It's universal. The idea that you have a gift or talent is always kind of threatening.
I love the opportunity to use my full range, and so playing in the comedy 'Black-ish' gives me the opportunity to show my lighter side, and playing in this beautiful, elegant horror story of 'Hannibal,' I get to use my darker and more cerebral side. It's really wonderful.
If you're playing a real person, then you want to do a certain amount of research, but that's only going to be so useful to you. Each role requires a different kind of approach to get ready.
As a man of colour, I've spent my life asking people to see me for who I am. With Obama in the White House, it feels like people have finally caught up to where I've been most of my life.
I really don't know that I'm iconic. I don't even know that people think I'm cool.
My company, Cinema Gypsy, produced a podcast, 'Bronzeville,' in conjunction with Larenz Tate and his brothers that we're developing into a television show. It deals with a very tight-knit African-American community in Chicago in 1947 and people who run a numbers wheel.
We are three dimensional beings: body, mind, spirit.
I try to meditate.
I work with my instincts. I don't have a process that I learned in an acting class whereby I break a script down or whereby I do a certain kind of research.
