Words matter. These are the best Courtney B. Vance Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I was a huge O. J. Simpson fan.
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!’
There’s a lot going on in the Bassett-Vance household, a lot of balls in the air.
When your tummy is full – even while shooting for long hours – you feel good.
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.
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.
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 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.
I would love to take a crack at ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night.’
When I got out of Yale Drama School, I was completely broke.
I didn’t know anything about acting at all. I was completely green. I got into it to meet people, to try and figure out what I wanted to do.
I’ve done a lot of Shakespeare as a young man; I was involved with Shakespeare and Company.
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.
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?
I’ve done a lot of movies, but my favorite was ‘Blind Faith.’
It was a natural for me to end up in the theater because I’d done a lot of reading about it.
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’ve done a lot of theater, and I know that it’s a different audience each time who doesn’t know the story, and we have to tell it.
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.’
