Some characters need to be more performance-orientated; some, you have to be still.

I don't want to be 45 years old and have been a hot actor when I was 33 and have people going, 'Whatever happened to Fishburne?'

Acting is a childlike thing. To act well, you have to be childlike in order to free yourself.

There's a bunch of plays that I never got to do because I was either too young or too old for the parts, like 'Slow Dance on the Killing Ground' and 'Dutchman.' For 'American Buffalo,' I was the wrong color.

You can't be bad when you're working with a kid. They have the instincts that all great actors have.

Do mainstream crowds want to watch a movie about good things happening in black neighborhoods? Do black audiences want to see a little girl doing something in a white world?

I carry a lot of feminine energy as well as masculine energy, and that's the hit that people are getting. That vulnerable thing is not what we assume with black males. You get it, and then they cease to become scary. They become human. You cease to have a bogeyman.

I think I've certainly learned a lot of lessons in humility and continue to work on that part of myself.

As a movie star, you get good tables at restaurants.

There's a lot of stuff that's not good that's touted as being good.