Quotes from Don Cheadle

I prefer film to TV because of the amount of time film affords you that TV doesn't (though theater is probably my favorite and the scariest place of all).

For me, it's always just been about finding material that I think is creative and interesting and fun and something that can expand me and that I can hopefully do something with.

I think if you were to look at my resume in total you would see a lot of things that are kind of all over the map.

We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.

One truth that I know for sure, for me anyway, is that the more you know, the more you realize that you don't know.

Now is a good time, 10 years ago would have been a good time, and 10 years from now it will still be a good time to see a dynamic, entertaining movie that's wall-to-wall Miles Davis where the music will hopefully spark some desire to know more about the man.

The process changes slightly from role to role. Obviously, there are different things you're called on to do. You're not digging deep for Basher Tarr like I was for Paul Rusesabagina, but at the end of the day it's still all make-believe and you still are trying as realistically as you can to depict these characters.

If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.

When I'm the person in front of the microphone, and I'm the person in the light, I want to reflect and refract the light onto places where they need the attention, where I don't need it.

It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.

But I think it's intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.

I don't like message movies either.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

I understand what's it like to work all week and on Friday night just want to go and leave your brain at the door, buy some popcorn and be thrilled by something.

People have always been obsessed by celebrities. There are just more outlets and opportunities to make a living exploiting that obsession nowadays.

I used to record but just in my own studio or in my friend's back when I toyed with the idea of being a rapper.

I was about to write that in the future I would chose my words more carefully but I'm sure I won't.