All I want and all I even ask of people in Hollywood is look, just be honest with me. Please don't lie to me. Whatever the situation is, be honest with me.
— Ving Rhames
I think quite a bit of organized religion has become big business. Jesus Christ never sold the word of God. He never gave a sermon and then said, 'For $8.99, you can buy the CD.'
I spent three days with Don King, and I interviewed 45 people. I studied his speech, his mannerisms. He invited me to a couple of fights, and I watched him.
I can always do theater; I can do Ibsen, I can do Macbeth, I can do Chekhov, I can do Moliere, Othello, I can do Richard III.
There could be some unknown actor who's a better actor than Ving Rhames, but no one knows that actor, so Ving Rhames will get the job.
Entertainment is needed, and so I do think escapism is needed.
I grew up in Harlem in New York, very rough, urban environment, and so what I found is that, if I can have kids travel to different places, countries, areas, it can expand their minds.
Rosewood is what Americans did to Americans. We have to hold the mirror up... and look at ourselves. Sometimes that's an ugly sight. And sometimes you have to go through that pain - both black America and white America - so we can finally find some racial harmony.
I don't know if I hadn't grown up poor, and in the neighborhood I did, if I would have had that much to bring to my art form. I call upon my past with characters.
I try to allow the spirit of the character to live through me. That's the only way I know how to approach acting. I have to live it.
I saw that crime pays, but I never got involved in crime.
My wife is a former homicide detective, LAPD. The wonderful thing that I was able to capture is my wife's experiences from human and professional, and how do you deal with some of the atrocities that happen in L.A. and not bring them home.
I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about.
When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.
I've always been taught to just play the truth of the situation. If comedy comes out of that, or drama, whatever comes out of it, at least I'm playing the truth of the moment-to-moment reality.
The training at Juilliard School is classical training, and it really makes one very versatile.
I graduated college in 1983, so that's 32 years, and all I've done for a living is act or commercials or voiceovers. So I have nothing to complain about.
I'm a God-fearing man, and I know the only reason why I am here going from poverty to where I am now is God has His hand on my life. I tell people, 'I didn't choose acting; God chose me to act.'
You get Don King's point of view in what is almost a Shakespearean, classical technique. He comes across almost like a lovable rogue, like Iago in 'Othello' or Richard III. He's doing all these bad things, but I kind of like him. It's like 'Pulp Fiction': Everybody's a bad guy, yet you like them.
I don't need dialogue to convey emotion or thoughts to my audience.
God is putting me in a position to affect people.
It's really how you deal with people. Do people respect you? Are you honest with people even if it's something they don't want to hear? Anyone in Hollywood will tell you I'm extremely up front and honest almost to a fault.
I live a very simple life.
I've always been interested in cross-cultural exchange with the youth.
I find it so strange that I throw people off-center.
My brother and I slept on the couch. I didn't get my own room until I was in college. We didn't even have a telephone until I was in college.
I graduated on a Friday. By Monday, I was doing Shakespeare in the Park.
There's really not that much difference between you and I. And my name really doesn't matter. Hopefully, my heart and my spirit matters to you. Hopefully.
I do fish, and as a matter of fact, I used to do a lot of deep sea fishing, but as far as going into the water, I don't go out deep into the water.
Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, I saw something - I don't know what it was to this day. My mind couldn't relate to what it was... If I saw it and knew it was a shark, I wouldn't be as afraid, but I saw something that looked prehistoric, and I haven't been snorkeling since.
I've known Laurence Fishburne for about twenty years.
I'm from New York, and yet I've done only one film executive-produced by Spike Lee and have never done a film that Spike Lee directed. I've never done a film that Keenan Wayans has directed, or Bill Duke.
I was more interested in playing sports than acting. I didn't take acting too seriously until the end of my junior year.
In this industry, very few actors can control their career.
I try to base my life on the principles of Christ. I try to raise my family on the principles of Christ. I don't know if that makes me religious.
Don King is as American as apple pie. He is America.
Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.
God has blessed me with a certain amount of presence and a certain amount of charisma.
'Mission: Impossible' is fun. But for myself as an artist, I'm really more concerned with the human condition, the human experience, especially from an African American point of view.
We're all about trying to teach the kids life through basketball.
Rottweilers are victims of a stereotype. They're not that bad.
I grew up in Harlem, and the kids used to tease me. You know that song 'Bingo'? Well, they used to sing, 'V-i-n-g-o, and Vingo was his name-o.'
A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the character was written a little more generic.
Miss Goodblatt would call on me to read. She said I had a talent. So on a whim, I auditioned for the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan.
How do you cut off the human side and just maintain being professional? So what I've done is I've incorporated that with Kojak - there's times when he allows the human condition, the human experience, to integrate into him as a professional.
I think there's so much we don't know and the unknown in the ocean; every 10 years or so, we find some fossil that's been there before mankind.
My dogs are family dogs.
The more you do a stunt, the more you increase the risk of something happening.
I never grew up thinking I wanted to be a quote-unquote star or anything. My thing was just feeling blessed to be able to make my living acting.
I'm the spokesman for ADT, and ADT, brother, pays better than most actors make on film.
