Quotes from Courtney B. Vance

Around 1969, my family had just bought a house in a lower-middle-class white neighborhood two blocks away from school. Then, all of a sudden, all the white people left the neighborhood and the school.

Our parents didn't let us watch a lot of television growing up. We had Disney on Sunday nights, and at 8:30, they were like, 'Turn it off! Go to bed!'

I think if you just hang in there long enough and keep doing what you know is your sweet spot, I think the world eventually catches up to you.

We were raised in the black community not to trust the police, and I believe, in the white community, they were raised to actually be a policeman.

I would love to take a crack at 'Long Day's Journey Into Night.'

I get up early, go to bed late, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. And I pray a lot.

When your tummy is full - even while shooting for long hours - you feel good.

When I was a senior in high school, I did an internship with a law firm. And it was very clear that I did not have what it took to do that kind of work.

The life of an editor is not a glamorous one. You're a fixer; you make things better.

From the outside, there's a lot of glitz. They see you on the red carpet, but they don't see what it takes to get there.

There's a lot going on in the Bassett-Vance household, a lot of balls in the air.

Tom Cruise is one of the most wonderful, kind, and generous men that I've ever met.

I love Tom Cruise. I've been a Tom Cruise fan for a long time.

When I got out of Yale Drama School, I was completely broke.

I remember I was up for the role of Jim in 'Huck Finn,' and because I went to Harvard and Yale, they didn't think I would be able to play a slave. I said, 'Oh, please.' I had to go in there and prove to them that I wasn't too intelligent to play a slave.

I was a huge O. J. Simpson fan.

We have to give people dreams; we have to give people hope. In terms of government, in terms of society, that's our goal. You can't have a group of people that don't dream, that see themselves as dead or in jail.

I've done a lot of Shakespeare as a young man; I was involved with Shakespeare and Company.

Eventually, you know the rhythm of your character, of the set of the piece. It takes less energy for you to hit that point, and then everything resonates. But initially, it takes a tremendous amount of energy. You just hope it's gonna be okay and you don't forget your lines and those cameras.

When actors have the opportunity to play a larger-than-life icon - my wife did it with Tina Turner, and Jamie Foxx did it with Ray Charles - you have to make a decision how you go in. What do you start with? Where do you begin?

My parents were all about education. My mother was a librarian - she retired after 30 years - and she made sure that we were always at museums, that we went to plays.

It goes back in the black community that the police are not your friends. That's an old, old, deep understanding that we have, that it's going to take a lot to undo that in our minds.

It's one of the roles of a lifetime to be able to play someone like Mr. Cochran who was so influential. People knew about his work in regard to police brutality. He was very much a staple in the community - someone who, if there was trouble, people knew, 'Go get Johnnie Cochran.'

Family is funny, and so it was not an unnatural thing for me, growing up, not to know anything about my dad or about the Vance side of our family.