Quotes from Ato Essandoh

There's some dues that you just have to pay in life.

Another benefit of going to Cornell is that 90 percent of your friends are doctors.

I was a chemical engineer in school. And, randomly, an ex-girlfriend dared me to do a play.

I know I'm supposed to say this, but I really, genuinely think Matt Damon is a great dude.

If you're going to sign a contract, there are things you have to understand you might have to do. If you don't, then you walk away.

A really good impressionist, even if they don't look at all like the person they're impersonating, it's a weird thing where they start to look like that person. It's kind of odd.

My dad, when he was young, did Shakespeare in school, and my mom was a little bit of an artist, but everybody was pragmatic.

When I tell my friends, 'I'm in the 'Bourne' movie,' they're like, 'Congratulations! Wait... is Matt Damon coming back?' I go, 'Yeah.' And they're like, 'Yo! Matt Damon! Matty D!' Everyone pretends they know Matt Damon. It's exciting.

I've never dated a Jewish woman.

I'd never thought about acting as a job. I was an engineer; I was in science and technology. I loved movies and television growing up, but I'd never thought about it as, 'Oh, that guy Denzel Washington is employed as an actor.'

I love the notion of a dude sitting there with an untuned guitar tapping his foot and just singing his passion out; that's what got me into music in the first place.

It's funny because as much as I've done Dr. Freeman, I guess because I shave right afterwards, people don't recognize me necessarily as Dr. Freeman, whereas a small role like 'Garden State' or 'Get Him to the Greek', which is the funniest one to me, they're like, 'Hey, you're that dude!' and you're like, 'Oh my God!' Which is awesome.

White artists have made millions of dollars off music they stole from black artists. I don't blame all the white artists. I'm a huge Stevie Ray Vaughn fan, and he was always very gracious about where he learned his music. But a lot of the time, you'd think the white guys thought it up. Hey, hasn't anyone heard of Muddy Waters?

In a law enforcement situation, black people are not always treated the same as white people would be.

I have a theater company that I'm a part of, Colt Coeur, and they do some really rad projects.

There is more equity now in movies and TV, although I think its mostly because of changing demographics. It's not a moral proposition. It's good business. Shows about people of all colors are making money.

Jason Bourne is supposed to be really sneaky and spry, but as soon as he walks by, everybody pulls out their cell phones and starts recording. That level of fame is wild to see.

'Copper' is my first period piece. It's funny because I've been doing a lot of episodes of 'Elementary' with Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu; they keep bringing me back on the show, and so I go from being an outstanding black doctor to being a kind of hood, ex-car thief who went through rehab in 'Elementary.'

What's nice about having an engineering degree is everybody thinks you are smart.

Macklemore gets a Grammy over Kendrick Lamar. I still can't get over that. But again, it's not Macklemore's fault. It's the way of the country.

I see it in a lot of period pieces where everybody is standing and talking, in a stilted, archaic way, instead of being loose in the world. So, I try to do a little bit of research, just so that I can feel like I'm grounded, but then I try to bring as much of my human understanding that I can, under the filter of it being 1865.

I think I'm a good actor, but to replicate tens of thousands of man hours in surgery is really hard.

When 'Goodfellas' is on TNT, and they've taken out all the curse words and put Tide commercials in the middle of it, I'll still watch 'Goodfellas' because it's that great of a movie.

Quentin Tarantino and Sam Jackson are the reasons I'm an actor.