Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by Laurence Fishburne
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Laurence Fishburne.
Last updated on December 24, 2024.
It's funny, a lot of people think I take myself seriously because I come off so serious sometimes. But it's not that I take myself seriously, I take what I do seriously.
I really don't know that I'm iconic. I don't even know that people think I'm cool.
My mother is quite a woman. She would push me, and when I got tired of her pushing, I'd say: 'Leave me alone. Don't push so much.'
I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent man who is open to a lot of different things and I think that questioning our purpose in life and the meaning of existence is something that we all go through at some point.
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?'
I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn't have any scenes with Marlon Brando, but I had scenes with Martin Sheen and was around Dennis Hopper, who was a child actor in the studio system and was enamored of James Dean, as was Martin, and they were all sort of disciples of Brando.
Mine were informal mentors. They were all in my working life.
I certainly believe that being in contact with one's spirit and nurturing one's spirit is as important as nurturing one's body and mind.
It's always a collective group of people coming together to oppose those things which are fundamentally contrary to our basic humanity.
People think my name is Morpheus. Many times, people will say to me, 'Morpheus!' and I will complete the sentence by saying, 'is not my name!'
I didn't have much of a childhood, but that's O.K. I have a livelihood.
I don't think Othello is a jealous man - he is a man who has been deceived by another person, just as everybody in the play is deceived by that person... The playwright uses the word 'jealousy' over and over and over again, but I don't think it has anything to do with being jealous.
Doing theater makes you feel like a real actor.
When I think of Othello, I think of a poet-warrior. Let me say that again - a romantic warrior. And I think I have those qualities in common with him.
If you like rock and roll, if you like rhythm and blues, if you like jazz, if you like hip-hop, you might be black-ish.
My vocation is I do what I do. I'm an actor; that's what I do.
I think any city that does the Olympics takes on the world and has to grow and has to kind of assimilate all sorts of folks.
I'm not dyeing my hair and trying to pretend I'm 40. That's not going to work for me.
I don't ever get to the point where anything is old hat.
Special effects are characters. Special effects are essential elements. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.
You know, whatever happens between the two of us that's created when we come together as actors is not something I think we can explain.
I think I've certainly learned a lot of lessons in humility and continue to work on that part of myself.
I think everyone is very surprised at how 'Matrix' has become the pop culture phenomenon that it is.
I have this unshakeable faith. I believe in myself; I believe in God.
In order to be the best version of yourself, you have to dedicate time, effort, and support to other people who need it.
I believe in my children. I believe in human beings. I believe in the goodness that is in human beings. I believe in many, many things that I cannot prove. I believe that there's the world of the seen and the world of the unseen.
I play characters. I don't think I really have a persona per se. I don't play the same guy every time. I show up, you don't know what I'm gonna do. I like it that way. I've intentionally tried to do it that way. I think that's what's interesting.
I see that I have, as part of my stock in trade, a very regal personality and carriage. I see that I have a kind of strength, a kind of command, and a kind of power that one would associated with a monarch.
I don't believe in acting teachers for me, so it's God's joke that he gave me a best friend who's an acting teacher.
I had two times in my life where I wanted to give up everything I worked for, but God gave me a job.
It's a huge blessing to know you've done something that has affected people the way 'The Matrix' has. It's like, there's 'Star Wars,' and then there's 'The Matrix.' It's cool to be a part of that.
It's important for a lot of young black males to value swagger over intelligence. Swagger is important, but intelligence must come before the swagger.
I always want to read the script and know everything and at least understand the context of the world that you're in and why you're there and all that stuff. It's good to know something. I like to know, but I've never been one of these, 'Just show me my stuff,' no, I like to know what the whole picture is so I can understand how I fit into it.
We don't really see a lot of war movies about the people that are left behind, dealing with the deaths of those who serve and the sacrifices they make.
I work with my instincts. I don't have a process that I learned in an acting class whereby I break a script down or whereby I do a certain kind of research.
Shooting a film with seven to eight actors together is complicated sometimes because you have to cover everybody.
I came up around people who took acting seriously, who cared about acting, cared about the theater and, in the '70s, made movies that said something that mattered. I came up with those people, and I was a kid. Their ethos and credo became mine.
I didn't want to be a big star. I wanted to be a really good actor.
'The Fugitive Kind,' 'Rope,' 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' - I watched all these as a way of reminding myself that you can do a movie based on a play. You can do a movie that stays in one place for a long stretch.
I can't remember a picture that has expressed black attitudes and personal relationships as vividly as we've done in 'Cadence.'
I ain't afraid of germs, man. And I ain't afraid of getting sick.
As a movie star, you get good tables at restaurants.
Doing 'CSI: N.Y.' is not 'CSI.' Doing 'CSI: Miami' is not 'CSI: N.Y.,' it's 'CSI: Miami.' It has a very, very specific tone. It has a very specific look. It has a specific way in which they tell their stories that's different from 'CSI: N.Y.' and 'CSI.'
'Apocalypse Now' was my craziest experience ever. I was 14 years old, and I'd lied about my age to get the role. I haven't had another film top it.
I certainly believe that being in contact with one's spirit and nurturing one's spirit is as important as nurturing one's body and mind. We are three dimensional beings: body, mind, spirit.
I'm left-handed: I can think and feel at the same time. My feminine side is very highly developed.
When I came into my adulthood, I recognized how fortunate I was to be doing what I loved to do.
John Wick is not a guy that asks for help, so when he goes to somebody for help, whoever that is, you know he's a serious cat.
I have a man cave somewhere in California - a totally undisclosed location where manly things occur. There are motorcycles, there are secret doors and passageways. Women are welcome, but they must knock.
If you asked someone who was a Maori about how they felt about how they were treated in Australia or New Zealand, you'll get an answer. They'll have something to tell you. And you might not like what you hear.
I try to stay in shape a little bit, but I don't obsess about it.
It's nice to get the feedback from a theater audience. It's a gas.
I've played a lot of bad guys, 'cause that was the only work I could get. People saw my face and went 'oooh'.
When I first read 'Boyz,' I cried. It could have been about some kids in Warsaw, Poland. I knew it was good, but I had no idea what it would do to me.
Philanthropic work reminds you of everyone's common humanity, and that's really the common denominator for everyone.
On a motorcycle, you can't really think about more than where you are. There's a freedom that comes with that - from stress, worry, sweating the small stuff.
Acting is a childlike thing. To act well, you have to be childlike in order to free yourself.
Acting and philanthropy are braided together. I've tried to seek out things that speak not just specifically to the community that created me, but that speak in a way that's universal and all of humanity celebrates.
After 'Othello,' it was, like, 'I can stop acting. I have played one of the great characters in the English language. I feel I have played him well and honorably. I have nothing to prove anymore.'
It's very difficult to set a film in one setting without giving the audience some intensity and some relief.
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