You can feel I am whatever you want to feel I am. God knows who I am, and I know who I am.
— Ving Rhames
The more versatile you make yourself, the more work you get. Training makes you more versatile and ultimately gets you more work. Julliard taught me that.
People often think I've played the villain more times than I have.
I think God has blessed each of us with at least one gift. So I think it's a matter of do we find it within our lifetime.
If someone's intimidated by me, that's something they have to deal with. When I walk down the streets of New York and an old woman grabs her purse when I pass by, I'm not going to give it a whole lot of energy because I'm not in the wrong. I'm a millionaire, and I'm not thinking about grabbing an old woman's purse.
My approach to the work is the same, whether I had the lead or a supporting role. I consider myself a character actor in the true sense of the word. Unless I'm doing my autobiography, I'm playing a character.
I don't give Hollywood the power to limit me. Only God can limit me.
You don't have to make, you know, $3 Million dollars a movie, or $20 Million dollars a movie, but if you make a living doing what you love doing, then that's success to me.
For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.
I find early jazz to be the most revolutionary music of its time.
When I look at the world, I recognize that unfortunately, it sometimes takes an atrocity like 9/11 to force us to come together.
Since I graduated college, all I have ever done for a living was acting.
In about 9th grade, an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school, so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Then I got accepted at the Julliard School, and by then, I was serious about it.
'Mission: Impossible' is basically entertainment, and for what it is, it's fine. I don't think most actors become actors to do that type of film.
The only difference between working on a huge-budget film and a lesser-budget film, is the quality of lunch and dinner.
Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.
I saw how, when my brother smoked reefer, it made my mother cry. He was 16 at the time. And I saw that she broke down and cried. I never wanted to hurt my mother, so I kept away from drugs.
Are you intimidated by me? Because if you're intimidated by me, that's something you'll have to deal with.
Most American actors are taught the Stanislavsky method... Method acting, but I really think that as an actor you have to develop what works for you. There is really not one way of doing anything. There are many ways of achieving the same goal.
The character of the computer whiz is not one that would normally be associated with me.
Really, if you get in the ring and box with someone for real, I don't think it is a sport. As far as professional fighters, you are literally putting your life on the line.
Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, 'I did not choose acting; acting chose me.' I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football.
Since God is the foundation of my life, anything that streams from that can only be positive.
I was never a struggling actor, for which I feel very blessed.
I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, but I didn't really know I was a deprived, poverty-stricken child until the media made me aware of it.
I like to say that I didn't choose acting - acting chose me.
