Top 70 Sterling K. Brown Quotes

I catch myself every once in a while doing that weird thing that I see famous people do, where they have sunglasses and hats on and grow out beards thinking that they’re fooling people. Dude, you’re not fooling anyone: you look just like you.

Always have an attitude of gratitude.

Any great art is meant to illuminate the human condition.

A couple of my favorite actors are Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Wright, and, may he rest in peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman. I’ve had an opportunity to see all of them onscreen and onstage.

It’s a very frightening feeling to feel like you can have a busted taillight or wear a hoodie or be playing in a park, and someone can take your life away. To have two children, two black boys, you ask yourself a lot of questions about how do I protect my family. Is there anything I can actually do?

Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms.

I’m a little kid from St. Louis, Missouri, on the inside.

I go to Stanford, and I’m an economics major, not thinking I’m going to do anything with acting. A professor came to the dorm where I lived looking for people to audition for an August Wilson play, ‘Joe Turner’s Come And Gone.’ I gave it a shot, got one of the lead roles in the play.

I have a certain memory of the way in which my father loved me until I was 10, and it was unconditional and eternal. I get to carry that for the rest of my life, but on a practical level after age 10, it’s just me sort of figuring it out.

Being in a Marvel film is the pinnacle of secrecy training.

Running gives me the confidence to be at my peak throughout the rest of my day.

If I can do quality work with wonderful writers and directors and producers… that’s the cherry on top.

It’s one thing to entertain, to educate, but to edify, to lift people up, that’s – to God be the glory.

My dad passed away when I was 10.

I think O. J. Simpson was a very prominent figure in the African-American community. He was sort of a manifestation of the American dream: ‘If it can happen for him, it can happen for me.’

In the gym, people’s enthusiasm tends to get the best of them. They realize this is their opportunity to say hello or that they love my work… It doesn’t matter how profusely you’re sweating.

The humanity that is given to other people isn’t given to us. There is an expendability that comes along with being African American.

Busy is good, you know. Busy is better than bored, and there’s more recognition. Like, I try to feign the anonymity which I had before ‘O.J.’

I’m obsessed with how people talk! Accents, dialects… So whenever I go someplace where an accent is extremely distinct – Minneapolis, New Orleans, Jamaica, Vancouver – I always find myself trying to pick up the subtleties of their patterns.

I remember the great work that Norman Lear did. That was an incredible heyday to be a black actor.

I never assume people are going to recognize me.

The most fundamental important thing for me as an actor is maintaining a sense of play. It’s so important.

I’ve spent so much of my career working intermittently, being busy and then with large swaths of time off, that it became the norm.

Don’t become too attached to your own myopia. Just because you’ve found a way to do things doesn’t mean it’s the way to do things. There are so many different ways in which to navigate this so-called life. Be open to experiencing more than one.

I’m very cognizant of the image that’s being put out there and the way in which people perceive me. I’m honored and flattered that they see me as being a decent human being. I try my best to be a decent human being, but I fall short of the mark like we all do on a regular basis.

There’s a time when it was an event for a black person to be on television. Where black households would gather around, ‘Oh, you know, Sammy Davis is going to be on ‘All in the Family’ tonight! Let’s go check it out!’ It was a big, big thing.

I went to Target once and picked up three seasons of ’24’ – what I call the Jack Bauer power hour – and watched 72 episodes in ten days.

I grew up feeling unattractive, and it took a long time to grow into a place where I was comfortable with me.

We’re all trying to figure out what’s next, what’s best for our families, what’s best for ourselves, and there’s a certain sort of comfort in knowing that you’re not in it by yourself.

I’ve been able to pay the bills. I’ve been able to pay off my student loans. I was a homeowner before anything happened in the larger public eye.

As a father of two black sons now, you ask yourself, ‘What do I have to do to assure the safety of these boys?’ It can be daunting.

When I walked up on stage at the Emmys, and when people stood up, it was a really sort of emotional, overwhelming moment. It was like I had been accepted.

Sarah Paulson doesn’t lie. Like, in life. But she doesn’t lie onscreen, and you can’t take your eyes off somebody who always tells the truth. She’s the most honest person I’ve ever met.

I can’t let other people dictate how I see myself.

I like working. I think being on set is one of my favorite places in the world.

The first time I went on a serious run was when I was 21 years old at Stanford University. From 21 to 30, I continued the tradition and ran 10 miles every year on my birthday.

I think, for the first time, people are starting to say, ‘That’s Sterling K. Brown,’ which is cool, which is uncharted territory for your boy. It’s nice to be called by your name when you’re not in character.

Immediately after school, I did a lot of regional theater. I was in Berkeley and Princeton and Minneapolis and all over the country doing wonderful plays for the local audiences.

Sarah Paulson is the most prepared and professional actor I’ve had the privilege of working with. I learned so much about preparation and attention to detail and speaking up when something is not right.

I always thought that I would just be working in obscurity in perpetuity.

I have a big family of big people.

We all have our prejudices, and we may or may not be aware of them. Sometimes people walk by me and give me a wider berth. It happens. I wear hoodies all the time because my head gets cold. Something innocuous can be misunderstood.

The biggest compliment that I receive is when other black folks come up to me and say, ‘You changed the way that I thought about Chris Darden.’

Life has to be everything. It can’t be all sad. It can’t be all peaches and cream. Because the lows have you appreciate the highs. And the highs give you perspective on the lows. If it’s not everything, it becomes flat or mundane.

I try to drink a lot of water – it hydrates, curbs appetite, etc.

Muhammad Ali was the greatest of all time. But what made him even greater was what he did outside the ring.

I think I’ll never stop doing theater because it’s a more physical and athletic activity. You can’t pull any punches; there are no short cuts, and you have to be physically present and committed. I love the excitement and the response of being in front of a live audience.

After six months of playing Chris Darden, it’s very hard for me to separate my views from his.

I’ve always been of the mind that what’s mine is mine, and nobody can take it away from me. So when it comes, great. When it goes, great.

I think the therapeutic part of acting is allowing myself to step into another human being’s shoes. It allows me the ability to release judgment, if I had any judgment to begin with. It’s an opportunity to understand rather than to stand outside and point fingers.

At the highest level of your craft, you don’t have to play games or make people feel small; you can just embrace.

My first series regular was on a TV show called ‘Starved,’ which was so many years ago, and I was the only guy they brought in. So I go in, I read, it goes well. The next day I hear I got the job, and I rejoiced.

With any sort of entertainment, you hope people are entertained.

I just try to do something to sweat at least an hour a day.

I was at Stanford University up in the West Coast Bay Area, so the biggest song of my freshman year was ‘I Got 5 on It’ by Luniz, and the ‘I Got 5 on It’ remix was the joint that everybody was jamming constantly. And then it was also at that particular time that I became a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan.

I love basketball because it’s social, and you’re not even thinking about working out – you’re just playing a game and getting great exercise at the same time.

You can take your play seriously as long as you seriously play.

My work schedule doesn’t always accommodate my workout schedule, but I make do with what time I’ve got.

As a kid growing up St. Louis, Missouri, I lived in a predominantly black neighborhood. Any time people talked about slavery, it was always something like, ‘If I was a slave, I wouldn’t have been putting up with that. I would have been out in a heartbeat.’ And it’s like, sure, it’s a very easy thing to say.