Top 44 Mike Colter Quotes

Comic book heroes are an important part of our culture, so I think we’re actually utilizing comic book heroes in a much more in-depth way than before. They have such potential, and I think we’re maximizing the potential.

It’s always fun to play a character that bends the rules.

I didn’t sit around thinking, ‘I’d love to play Luke Cage,’ but when the character was presented, I did my research, and I was just like, ‘This is a real gift. He’s a great character, and I’m happy to have a chance to take a crack at him.’

I hate the gym, so I try to diversify my workouts with swimming and basketball. Indoors, it’s less boring than running. I do find that diet is key. I eat lots of lean protein, no soda, no fast food or fried foods, and a lot of water. But I love food and often cook.

I’ve always wanted to be on a show that’s well respected and had critical acclaim and that people like to watch, and at the same time find something that, for me, as an actor, is interesting and challenging.

I think, in a career, you have several breaks that lead to a big break. Small things here and there all add up to cracking away at the dam. Then the dam breaks.

I did want to play a superhero. I mean, who doesn’t when you’re a kid? I would have loved to be a superhero. But as I’d gotten older, I wasn’t ready to jump into tights and put the cape on. I was hoping to play something a little more grounded and realistic.

Harlem is really a melting pot for a lot of different people. When you look at Harlem – and I lived there almost five years – most of the people who live in Harlem are transplants. They migrate to Harlem from another place.

I see fans all the time. They’re always very complimentary, and they’re always very eager to talk and to share their experiences or get a selfie. They’re really, really loyal. And intense.

Ridley Scott was part of the production team on ‘The Good Wife.’ I auditioned on my iPhone, and it moved very quickly after that, as they thought I was right for the role, and pretty soon I was filming in Iceland for two months.

It serves anyone, when they’re going into some project, to try to distance themselves from the material so you can really have an objective viewpoint.

No, no. I draw the line there. Anything that’s going to show an outline of my manhood is not on.

My mother wanted to be an actress. She wanted to follow her dreams, and she never really got a chance to do that. I feel like I’m following her dream in a way.

Sometimes you don’t know the effect of words until you hear it used on you.

I have a wonderful wife I met at Rutgers while we were both there. She was in the Ph.D. program. She is not an actress. She definitely brings balance to my life. We actors can tend to bore anyone with shop talk.

If you’re not enjoying your work, what’s the point?

I pretty much spend most of my time in the gym bulking up and staying fit and putting muscle on so I can play the part of Luke Cage, but I’ve never been a gym rat.

As an actor, you just want to continue to work on things that you like. You can be in this business a long time and consistently working and just be totally artistically unfulfilled.

I think anyone in New York City could look at Luke Cage and say, ‘Hey, this guy could help me out.’ I don’t want him to just seem like a relevant hero for only black people.

Acting, really, is a lot of mental fatigue, emotional fatigue, concentration… it’s mentally draining.

You can have all the intentions you want and try and guide the narrative, but the narrative is irrelevant because it’s how the public digests it that will be indicative of what the series will ultimately be.

People forget, most of the times we audition with people who aren’t necessarily actors. So it doesn’t matter who or what’s in front of you: you still have to have the same realism and invested emotions.

As long as you can throw people a curveball, that’s what you’re looking for. Because the minute they can define you, the minute they think they know exactly who you are, is when it starts to wear thin.

When you’re acting, it’s all about you and the person in front of you, and I think in life we forget to apply the same technique, and we get caught up in the panic of what we’re trying to do – how overwhelmingly daunting the task of trying to become an actor is.

Cops and criminals aren’t that different. They just play by different sets of rules. And the lines get blurred. There’s no such thing as ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ There’s always a grey area. There are always hypocrisies.

I like to take a break, but at the same time, I think most actors are not very good at sitting around doing nothing, because we like to work.

Marvel does a fantastic job about bringing human stories – because you’re telling big stories with a heart at the centre of it – and that’s what connects all of the characters to our audience members.

I’m always very even-keeled, and I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

As artists, we are so not in control most of the time of the content or the narrative of our characters, and sometimes writing takes a turn and it’s not something we necessarily have control over. It’s just a lot of random dumb luck, so when things click, you’ve just got to enjoy it.

I’m a bit bored of going to the gym! I’m like, ‘Someone put me out of my misery – I can’t do this anymore!’

When I was playing Bishop, I would always walk on set thinking, ‘This is my show; this is a show all about me.’

I’m always game for creating a new character, and I liked the idea of putting something new into the ‘Halo’ universe.

A lot of times in life, women want to talk, but men don’t want to listen, and if they do want to listen, they turn it back to themselves.

When Barack Obama got elected, I remember being in Harlem specifically. I remember watching that whole part of town just swell. People walked the streets, but it wasn’t a riot – it wasn’t mayhem. It was a unified feeling of euphoria.

Some people in America don’t ever interact with black people outside of television, so we should give them real, believable characters.

As for facial hair, I think I decided it was a good look after graduate school. I always shave it myself and trim my own beard. I change the look depending on the role. For ‘Million Dollar Baby,’ I had no facial hair. For ‘Men in Black 3,’ I had no facial hair but did wear a wig.

When you’re a black man in a hoodie, all of a sudden you’re a criminal. That’s something we shouldn’t have to deal with, but we do. It’s a double standard. We can’t cover our head when it’s cold and raining because God forbid someone sees us and puts our life in danger.

Having worked on ‘Halo: Nightfall’ and gotten a taste for what ‘Halo’ has to offer, it definitely has me interested in picking up the games and getting familiarized more with the ‘Halo’ universe.

If you’ve ever been to Harlem, there’s always something playing on the street, and there’s this energy that feels different to anywhere else in New York.

I respond to women who have their stuff together, who are in charge, who don’t need men to do things for them. I want a woman to have her own thing, you know? My wife is very smart. She’s got a doctorate degree; she’s got her own career going. She doesn’t need me to take care of her.

As an actor, you’re trying to capture the nuances of real life, but voice work is almost over-acting.

There’s no book to figure out how not to become a victim of police brutality.

Sometimes we just sit around and sit on our hands and don’t do anything because it’s like, ‘Hey, that’s not my problem.’ You can’t do that when you’re a superhero.

It’s nice to be recognized, but at the same time, there are always consequences. You may get fame, but you lose anonymity. You lose a certain sense of who you are.