Laurence Fishburne

I didn't want to be a big star. I wanted to be a really good actor.

I didn't have much of a childhood, but that's O.K. I have a livelihood.

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.

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 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.

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.

Mine were informal mentors. They were all in my working life.

Special effects are characters. Special effects are essential elements. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.

I've played a lot of bad guys, 'cause that was the only work I could get. People saw my face and went 'oooh'.

I think everyone is very surprised at how 'Matrix' has become the pop culture phenomenon that it is.

If you're playing a real person, then you want to do a certain amount of research, but that's only going to be so useful to you. Each role requires a different kind of approach to get ready.

I really don't know that I'm iconic. I don't even know that people think I'm cool.

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

What I continue to learn as a parent is to be mindful of the fact that I am responsible for being the parent that my children need me to be and not necessarily the parent I want to be.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

I actually had the opportunity to stand at the lectern in the Supreme Court and face the justices, which was really a powerful thing for me.