Quotes from Ving Rhames

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.

I graduated on a Friday. By Monday, I was doing Shakespeare in the Park.

We're all about trying to teach the kids life through basketball.

I saw that crime pays, but I never got involved in crime.

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.

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.

Don King is as American as apple pie. He is America.

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.

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.'

I like to say that I didn't choose acting - acting chose me.

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 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.

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.

'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.

I don't give Hollywood the power to limit me. Only God can limit me.

God has blessed me with a certain amount of presence and a certain amount of charisma.

I don't need dialogue to convey emotion or thoughts to my audience.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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.