Quotes from Brian Tyree Henry

It's really humbling and gratifying to see that people are finally realizing that we are talented and we have things to say and that our stories are just like your stories. There's no reason that anybody from Wisconsin or Turkey can't relate to 'Atlanta.'

Acting, for me, was kind of a way of survival, honestly. I'm the baby boy out of four different sisters, and I grew up in a house with so many different personalities that acting was the only way to not go to therapy.

I hope Paper Boi runs for president. I hope he does. Governor, mayor, senator, I hope he does it all. You better believe it.

Every time you get in front of the lights and the cameras and you think, 'Okay, well, we've done this before, but we have to do it again? Oh, we're doing it again? We're doing it again?' It's so gratifying, but I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I hope I won't.

Atlanta's a great city to cultivate your own thing - from fashion to music to food.

I'm very grateful, first of all, for my friends and my family because they keep me grounded, and they make sure I'm taking care of myself and that I'm keeping my sanity about me.

Just to say 'woke' is to always be in a constant stream of consciousness where you don't feel like the wool is pulled over your eyes so much. You question your belief that everything should just be presented to you on this beautiful plate. Everything is not as it seems.

I love the element of surprise, throwing people off of what they think they know about what I can do and who I am. I just want to keep doing that.

I never thought that 'Atlanta' would go off and do what it was gonna do. I never thought that I would get recognized for that show the way that I have been.

My school had the dopest arts program - the dopest show choir, the dopest marching band. I couldn't sing or play an instrument a lick, but I was just going to fake it till I make it.

I discovered that acting gave me this spark, this thing. Honestly, it was a way to survive.

What does it serve any studio to not reflect the lives of people who are giving you money, who are crying out to you, 'Hey, please tell our stories.'

The projects that I've been fortunate enough to do are all projects where I followed my heart. I didn't follow the money or the names. It's all about reflecting my life and my art.

The most important thing I feel in the acting profession is to create a community that reflects you back to you.

You play the honesty of the characters and show a side of them that people can relate to and want to get to know.

In my household growing up in Fayetteville, N.C., music was the great communicator between my parents and me.

Atlanta's the hub of black culture, and it's OK to be you there - it's the city that really shaped me to be who I am.

Hug your mom. Hug your mom and thank your mom.

The humility keeps me going forward.

I'm a big guy: I look like a linebacker, you know? But no one cares, really, that I'm educated. I have a copy of 'Fire Next Time' by James Baldwin in my bag. I have an Ibsen play in there, too. I have to walk through this world with that duality all the time, that I live in two different worlds.

On top of trying to find my way in this business and losing my mother and trying to figure out what family meant to me and everything - 2016, there was a lot of anger from me and a lot of anger all around. I think the hardest part was to really realize that all these things, it's worth it.

TV can be a thread between all of us, and it can be a powerful tool to examine life and love and what we all have in common as humans.

After my mother and father separated when I was 5, my mother moved to Washington, D.C., and my father remained in North Carolina. Later, I moved to New York and would often drive down to D.C. to see her. We'd ride around together talking and listening to music.

Yale was one of the best moments in my life - also one of the hardest. I learned about community.