Don Cheadle Quotations

I understand what's it like to work all week and on Friday night just want to go and leave your brain at the door, buy some popcorn and be thrilled by something.

But I think it's intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

People have always been obsessed by celebrities. There are just more outlets and opportunities to make a living exploiting that obsession nowadays.

I was about to write that in the future I would chose my words more carefully but I'm sure I won't.

I used to record but just in my own studio or in my friend's back when I toyed with the idea of being a rapper.

I want to be a part of great things.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles.

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.

The process changes slightly from role to role. Obviously, there are different things you're called on to do. You're not digging deep for Basher Tarr like I was for Paul Rusesabagina, but at the end of the day it's still all make-believe and you still are trying as realistically as you can to depict these characters.

Many of my friends and family are scratching it out somewhere decidedly south of the ever widening gap between the haves and have nots, looking at losing their homes, colleges they can't afford and healthcare they can't avail themselves of.

It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.

For me, it's always just been about finding material that I think is creative and interesting and fun and something that can expand me and that I can hopefully do something with.

I think if you were to look at my resume in total you would see a lot of things that are kind of all over the map.

But most scripts are terrible. Most projects are bad, that's just kind of the way it is. And I'm not really attracted to those.

I want to see somebody go to jail over the financial crisis and not just black, brown and poor whites over humbles and minor drug beefs.

We're trying to do what Miles Davis would have wanted us to do, which is approach it as artists with his life as the canvas.

I prefer film to TV because of the amount of time film affords you that TV doesn't (though theater is probably my favorite and the scariest place of all).

I think we should all be more concerned about the environment and the effects of global warming. It will be pointless to talk about all the issues that divide us when it's 300 degrees outside.

I've never been a part of a film before that offers such a platform into real issues, that raises social awareness and has the potential to change things.

If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.

No, it's not comfortable; I hate watching myself. You don't like when you hear your voice on your voicemail; imagine having to see yourself 30 feet wide and 30 feet big.

I also believe that you are what you have to defend, and if you're a black man that's always going to be the bar against which you are judged, whether you want to align yourself with those themes or not. You can think of yourself as a colourless person, but nobody else is gonna.

I don't like movies that are trying to preach and trying to tell you how to feel.

We believe that it really celebrates the definition of what an ensemble is all about. I mean there's 74 of us.

It's much easier to cry or be angry, but to really laugh and genuinely be buoyant and laugh. That's hard if you don't really feel that way.

Comedies are very hard to do. They are difficult. Unless there's the Judd Apatow school, where they're like okay, we know that, we're going to do those. Or unless it's something that's far to the other side.

I don't know what would be antithetical to do on the other side, maybe a Tyler Perry movie or something. No, there are very few comedies that live in between that. Or you're doing some kid thing like a Jim Carrey movie with animated something that's like that. Yeah, I've wanted to do them. I like doing them. I did Talk to Me. That was pretty much a comedy.

The best thing that I learned from the best directors that I worked with is that the best answer wins. They are ego-less when it comes to doing the most important thing.

There are things that are happening way earlier than [the Oscars] when it comes to someone deciding whether they're going to spend x amount of millions of dollars on a movie.I want $100 million success. The moviegoer is the person I'm more interested in than the Academy.

We're not talking about you scored more points than me and I know that you won and I lost, those are clear results. This is about people's opinions and their subjective takes on things, people that sometimes haven't seen all of the movies they're voting on.

And it's not just black people. That's the other thing about this issue, it's conflated with just black and white and it's not that at all. It's diversity, it's something that looks more like the landscape of the country. And it's not about then we get the statues we deserve, it's not that. It's that everyone should be able to participate in this silly contest, which is how I feel about it.

If anyone ever said biopic I would say, "It's not a biopic." We're fighting uphill against the weight of history. I was like, why don't we just call it historical fiction?

I was brought into the curiosity of it because with Sony Pictures Classics, which bought the movie, they look into what the feedback is and base that off of how they release it, and you end up hearing the feedback and getting that early talk. So the reviews early on that were "bad reviews," they were kind of reviewing another movie.

I think if you're going to read reviews, you have to just concede that they are all right. And I think I read two very diametrically opposed reviews about my movie and I had to go, yeah, I agree with both of them.

I'm trying to steal from everybody. So yeah, there's cats that I'm personally affiliated with - Carl Franklin, Paul Thomas Anderson - and others that I don't know personally but their work I'm a big admirer of, like Martin Scorsese. But I'm hoping to come up with a language that is mine, that's specific to my take on this material.

I'm a parent. I have kids, and what's happening with our waters, and our oceans, and what's happening with deforestation, and all these things that human beings are having negative impacts on at this time, are concerning to me. I wanted to do whatever I could to be a part of the solution and not just be a part of the problem.

Water is an issue, and, clearly, what's happening with the filth in our environment and the levels of carbon monoxide in our atmosphere are the really scary issues right now, the very troubling ones.

Once the steam engine went away and we started moving into burning fossil fuels - not just burning them, but everything we do with oil - we've been experiencing [these problems] at an accelerated rate. The scary end-game scenario is getting closer and closer, about what we're going to be able to do to sustain life on this planet as we have come to know it. And I think this is a very real possibility, that we could be dealing with conditions we have no idea how to wrestle with.

One thing that you consistently see everywhere is that the poor and the under-represented are always the ones who are going to suffer the most and get the short end of the stick.

I think having good family and friends really helps to ground you.

Speak up when you're supposed to, as opposed to trying to write prescriptions for the way people should live.

You should do what you're supposed to do and hope that that ripples out.

Living by example - that's always a better teacher than trying to preach.

I think that it's much more important to do than to say. And you learn that a lot from your kids, who are watching you, you know?

Every time I've learned something, I've realized there are a hundred more things I don't know about the thing I just learned.

When I'm the person in front of the microphone, and I'm the person in the light, I want to reflect and refract the light onto places where they need the attention, where I don't need it.

I started following the news and seeing what was happening around the world with the polar ice caps melting and temperatures breaking records. I became concerned as an animal on this planet but also as a father.

Is there a way to discuss climate change without politics or religion getting in the way?

It is the least represented among us who will be the most affected first. We have a moral responsibility to protect them.

I hate it when, by page 30, I know what the lead's going to do and then what the bad guy's gonna do. Mostly it's just scripts by the numbers where nothing's surprising, nothing's interesting.

Now is a good time, 10 years ago would have been a good time, and 10 years from now it will still be a good time to see a dynamic, entertaining movie that's wall-to-wall Miles Davis where the music will hopefully spark some desire to know more about the man.

One truth that I know for sure, for me anyway, is that the more you know, the more you realize that you don't know.

If you look up and no one who's around you has been around you for the past 20 years, and they're all new people, I think that's a problem.

Yeah! I went to the set of Monuments Men.

It's important to keep the people who know you well around you. It helps center you.

We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.

Kids clearly help center you because you can't impress your kids. People are like, "Oh, are they so excited because you're Ironman?" My kids couldn't care less. They like it when I hang out and play dad. I impress them by playing video games with them and doing well. Your kids humble you.

We're really trying to give people the ability to go into a darkened room and have a couple hours of just pure enjoyment.

I pray that our leaders stop pointing fingers and playing the blame game and seek a real solution for the good of the planet and all who inhabit it.

President Obama inherited a broken country mired in two wars, a financial crisis, a mortgage mess and more than we all probably even know about and has in my opinion brought us back from the brink. But I still see my friends in no better shape and the gap widening.

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

I think it’s intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.

I don't believe that the U.S. needs to take a police role. I think it needs to support African nations that have said they want to become a part of the solution.

Just from him doing the things that he knew how to do, moment to moment -- it's not some mythic figure. It's just a common, everyday man. And I think that's what people are connecting to.

Please keep it up, don't drop it. This was the scene ... that really made me want to do the movie.

The problems are very nuanced and complex. We are in dire need of leadership from our government if we are going to see any change.

The problems are very nuanced and complex... we are in dire need of leadership from our government if we are going to see any change,

The problems are very nuanced and complex, ... We are in dire need of leadership from our government if we are going to see any change.

The problems are very nuanced and complex and are things that we are in dire need of leadership from our government if we are going to see any change.

We cannot stand here in a free society, proclaiming that we care about human life, and do nothing in the face of this, in my opinion,

We knew if we could get Don, he'd attract a cast because he's the kind of actor all the directors want to work with. We asked him to produce the film as well, because we're not dumb. ... He's the reason we have this cast, he and the fabulous casting directors.

What we are seeing are tsunamis of violence, ... and we will continue to see these unless people step up, unless people step forward and demand from their leadership, demand from the international community that this not stand.

Don't talk to me unless you speak American. It's all the things you don't say that's below the surface and how it can bubble up.

People saw the film and said, 'Wow that was terrible. I wish I had known.' Now you know.

A lot of actors had reservations about the material and about Paul - not his personality or talent, but, with a first- time filmmaker, there was not a lot of margin for error. But I trusted his vision.

They really need to come up with a clear definition - that's what this is all about.

It's a film that doesn't end when the credits roll. It's a discussion that we've heard out in the world many, many times, and it's great that it's just started a dialogue about things that people, on the surface, seem not to want to talk about.

It's shocking to see the kind of devastation that occurred there and to know it's still going on. I am working with Timberland -- a company I respect and whose pursuit of social justice I admire -- to inspire others to help bring a halt to these atrocities.

The fun for me is to mix it all up. I would actually like to do something as far away from what I've just done, just for my own personal joy and growth, for what I want to do.

All of their experiences were the stuff of epic films things they had to go through in those 100 days. It was amazing.