Joe Morton

When I first saw Dick Gregory on television, growing up in Queens, it was startling and amazing, because nobody else was doing what he was doing.

When I was growing up, all these superheroes were white. On some level, you put that out of your mind... but as you get older, you realize it's a very one-sided affair. So I'm very glad to see that these movies are becoming more diversified.

Most of my career I purposely spent doing good guys.

I've played good guys for most of my career, and when I came out to California, I thought, 'I really would like to find some wonderfully intelligent bad guy to play.'

My whole career has been a landmark. So I don't think about the pressure too much. I just go out and do, because I believe in it.

If there's no craft there, then once the looks go, there goes your career.

My father was in the service. His job was to integrate the Armed Forces overseas. So that meant we showed up at military bases in Okinawa or Germany, racially unannounced. That made me, in that particular society if you will, the outsider.

Film and television is just a different technique in terms of how to approach the camera but basically the job is the same; but what you learn as a craft in theater, you can then learn to translate that into any mediums.

Actors are very often people who are placed in a position where they think they have to be grateful for the job and have no control over what they play and how they play it. I was not taught that way. I completely disagree with that. I think that you have more control than you think.

Basically, the actor's job is to pay attention to the script.

I know who Dick Gregory is; I knew what his accomplishments are. I certainly knew him as a comedian and an activist.

With any villain, you have to see things from their point of view and understand that they think what they're doing will make the world a better place.