Quotes from Jeffrey Wright

I'm gonna be on the Hawaiian beaches when I'm old.

If a director can't figure out what they might get from me or whether he or she wants to work with me based on what I've done, then I can't tell them anything more than what they don't know already.

Collaboration is a multilane highway, going in all directions. If there isn't reciprocity, it fails, and it's unsatisfying.

Comedy's all math, figuring out the timing.

In theater, the primary tool for me was voice. On-screen, it's the eyes.

One of the first things I do when I step onto a set is I scan the set and try to take in every detail, because what I'm trying to find are tools that I can use to incorporate myself into the space and tools that I can use to make the performance authentic and to build on the authenticity of that.

At the most base level, what an actor represents to the film industry is an investment. Depending on the risk profile, an investor needs 1,000 reasons to commit and one reason not to. That means you've got to do more work on your own, and that the machine is not going to necessarily do the blocking for you. The machine rarely accepted my code.

I used to say that 'happy' was like 'lucky,' kind of imaginary. But now that I'm married and have children, I find that happiness is a real space.

When I started off as an actor, the last thing I wanted to do in the world was make money. I was under the impression, when I started off as an actor, that the more money I made, the more it would diminish from my creativity and my capacity to be an artist.

I, Jeffrey Wright, the actor, actually signed on to the 'Westworld' Delos website. My profile came back as a Libertine, which is probably reasonably accurate.

My mom used to take me to the theater to see the tours that would come through D.C., and I loved it. I loved it. I was absolutely enthralled by the theater and by that world.

I started acting when I was at Amherst my junior year, and my lacrosse career kind of started to flop sideways after that.

From an animation perspective, it doesn't get better than Pixar. You're working so much in the blind because the huge circle of collaborators that's required to pull off a film like this means that you are just one small arc in that large circle. The level of trust that you have to give into is significant.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

I ski and grew up skiing.

I started surfing when I was working on 'The Hunger Games,' out on the north shore of Oahu, so about four years ago. I used to skateboard as a kid, kind of religiously, until I broke my leg riding in a pool when I was about 14 and I couldn't play football that fall.

I like New York because you're kind of forced to smell everybody else's funk. So it keeps you biologically attached to the world around you.

Some of my earliest heroes were congresswomen like Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan.

Some musicians play blues, others classical jazz or bluegrass. I like to play political roles because I can merge my political interests with my creative interests.

For lack of any clearer idea, I just started acting one day. It had been in the back of my head for a while, but I think in some ways I was afraid to do it, and finally I just stepped up.

I think I was afraid of what I might say when I got onto someone's stage or in front of someone's camera.

The reason why things work is because of love.

Our great nation put a man on the moon, but it can't train its cops to distinguish between an ordinary brown-skinned brother and a criminal.

And it's one reason why I don't go to a lot of movies - they're more and more dominated by corporate values and fiscal concerns as opposed to cinematic concerns.