Top 44 Ving Rhames Quotes

For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside – and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.

When I look at the world, I recognize that unfortunately, it sometimes takes an atrocity like 9/11 to force us to come together.

Are you intimidated by me? Because if you’re intimidated by me, that’s something you’ll have to deal with.

You get Don King’s point of view in what is almost a Shakespearean, classical technique. He comes across almost like a lovable rogue, like Iago in ‘Othello’ or Richard III. He’s doing all these bad things, but I kind of like him. It’s like ‘Pulp Fiction’: Everybody’s a bad guy, yet you like them.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, ‘I did not choose acting; acting chose me.’ I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football.

‘Mission: Impossible’ is fun. But for myself as an artist, I’m really more concerned with the human condition, the human experience, especially from an African American point of view.

I live a very simple life.

The more versatile you make yourself, the more work you get. Training makes you more versatile and ultimately gets you more work. Julliard taught me that.

I grew up in Harlem, and the kids used to tease me. You know that song ‘Bingo’? Well, they used to sing, ‘V-i-n-g-o, and Vingo was his name-o.’

I was never a struggling actor, for which I feel very blessed.

I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about.

I think there’s so much we don’t know and the unknown in the ocean; every 10 years or so, we find some fossil that’s been there before mankind.

It’s really how you deal with people. Do people respect you? Are you honest with people even if it’s something they don’t want to hear? Anyone in Hollywood will tell you I’m extremely up front and honest almost to a fault.

I try to allow the spirit of the character to live through me. That’s the only way I know how to approach acting. I have to live it.

I do fish, and as a matter of fact, I used to do a lot of deep sea fishing, but as far as going into the water, I don’t go out deep into the water.

I saw how, when my brother smoked reefer, it made my mother cry. He was 16 at the time. And I saw that she broke down and cried. I never wanted to hurt my mother, so I kept away from drugs.

I think God has blessed each of us with at least one gift. So I think it’s a matter of do we find it within our lifetime.

I think quite a bit of organized religion has become big business. Jesus Christ never sold the word of God. He never gave a sermon and then said, ‘For $8.99, you can buy the CD.’

I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, but I didn’t really know I was a deprived, poverty-stricken child until the media made me aware of it.

My brother and I slept on the couch. I didn’t get my own room until I was in college. We didn’t even have a telephone until I was in college.

Rottweilers are victims of a stereotype. They’re not that bad.

My wife is a former homicide detective, LAPD. The wonderful thing that I was able to capture is my wife’s experiences from human and professional, and how do you deal with some of the atrocities that happen in L.A. and not bring them home.

Since God is the foundation of my life, anything that streams from that can only be positive.

I don’t need dialogue to convey emotion or thoughts to my audience.

Most American actors are taught the Stanislavsky method… Method acting, but I really think that as an actor you have to develop what works for you. There is really not one way of doing anything. There are many ways of achieving the same goal.

I saw that crime pays, but I never got involved in crime.

God has blessed me with a certain amount of presence and a certain amount of charisma.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, I saw something – I don’t know what it was to this day. My mind couldn’t relate to what it was… If I saw it and knew it was a shark, I wouldn’t be as afraid, but I saw something that looked prehistoric, and I haven’t been snorkeling since.

I’ve always been taught to just play the truth of the situation. If comedy comes out of that, or drama, whatever comes out of it, at least I’m playing the truth of the moment-to-moment reality.

How do you cut off the human side and just maintain being professional? So what I’ve done is I’ve incorporated that with Kojak – there’s times when he allows the human condition, the human experience, to integrate into him as a professional.

I’ve always been interested in cross-cultural exchange with the youth.

A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with ‘Bringing Out the Dead,’ the character was written a little more generic.

Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father’s folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn’t do this and offer me this background, I wouldn’t be here.

People often think I’ve played the villain more times than I have.

Rosewood is what Americans did to Americans. We have to hold the mirror up… and look at ourselves. Sometimes that’s an ugly sight. And sometimes you have to go through that pain – both black America and white America – so we can finally find some racial harmony.

I can always do theater; I can do Ibsen, I can do Macbeth, I can do Chekhov, I can do Moliere, Othello, I can do Richard III.

The more you do a stunt, the more you increase the risk of something happening.

If someone’s intimidated by me, that’s something they have to deal with. When I walk down the streets of New York and an old woman grabs her purse when I pass by, I’m not going to give it a whole lot of energy because I’m not in the wrong. I’m a millionaire, and I’m not thinking about grabbing an old woman’s purse.

I try to base my life on the principles of Christ. I try to raise my family on the principles of Christ. I don’t know if that makes me religious.

The only difference between working on a huge-budget film and a lesser-budget film, is the quality of lunch and dinner.

I’m the spokesman for ADT, and ADT, brother, pays better than most actors make on film.

Don King is as American as apple pie. He is America.

‘Mission: Impossible’ is basically entertainment, and for what it is, it’s fine. I don’t think most actors become actors to do that type of film.

Really, if you get in the ring and box with someone for real, I don’t think it is a sport. As far as professional fighters, you are literally putting your life on the line.