Commercial success still hasn't come to an artist that isn't signed to a record label. There are very few artists that can succeed without the help of a record label. The role of the record label is still required, it's still necessary.
The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people. To the teacher, America entrusts her most precious resource, her children; and asks that they be prepared... to face the rigors of individual participation in a democratic society.
There are some fine books and essays about that. Lewis Hyde has written about alcoholism and poets and the role that society gives its writers - encouraging them to die.
I love the idea that somebody is going to compare me to my character or think that I am like my character when they see me. I feel like that is a role that I am willing to fulfill.
I am really not of the school of naturalism. I like style, and you can use more style in theater than in film roles. I love to sink my teeth into a part.
I love meat - I'm Cuban; I grew up eating meat, platanos, and arroz con pollo. I don't believe in starving yourself, but sometimes I do cleanses and diets to prepare for a role.
I was in love with this character of Ray Krebbs. I wanted the part badly. I had done several Western films in my career at that point and there wasn't much opportunity then to play Western roles on television at that time.
More and more, I think about the role of the arts, and as an artist, I think that it's important that I share the love and peace.
'Music for Relief' has played a vital role in helping get aid to people who most need it. We are deeply honored to participate in what will likely be our biggest event to date.
But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.
I played more of an advisory role with Public Enemy. I really trusted them to make the music that they wanted to make, and the way The Bomb Squad worked with the... they created their whole own world of music.
So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.
And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men's.
What's universal is the texture of our relationships. It's evolving. Times are changing with the women's movement. Men's roles are being redefined and, in some ways, they're confused.
I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role that black men should play in their lives with their children and in their lives with their women.
I ultimately wanna do big movies, and I've been so close so many times. They keep giving my roles to girls with just a little more exposure than me.
Everybody knows when you've got a role in a Spike Lee movie, you're gonna blow up. But I happen to be the only person who's had the lead in the two Spike Lee movies nobody saw.
I don't prepare for my roles. I don't watch movies to get inspired. I don't dig deep. I'll never be that type of actor, and I doubt that I ever will be.
If you look at the movies that come out, most of them are bad, so it's not as if achieving some level of success means you get offered better roles, because frankly they don't seem to exist.
My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath,' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.
I'm less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a personal level. I'm interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the ones I am a part of.
