Idris Elba Quotes

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.

Mr. Cosby wanted to do a show not about an upper-middle-class black family, but an upper-middle-class family that happened to be black. Though it sounds like semantics, they're very different approaches.

Either we want to have segregation or integration. And if we don't want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards, where you're only awarded if you're black.

I know I'm a black actor, but really, I'm an actor who happens to be black.

Kanye West does not represent all black people.

Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.

I have a theory. An audience doesn't need to get wrapped up in blackness every time they see a Negro actor. And a movie doesn't have to be about race just because there's a Negro in it.

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor.

I don't understand labels. I don't need anybody to tell me I'm Latina or black or anything else. I've played characters that were written for Caucasian females, I just want to be given the same consideration as everybody else, and so far that has been happening.

In fact, some reviewers have said that as they got into the story they forgot that the protagonist is a black woman. They were moved by the story - by the people as a whole - and not by the little things.

I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America.

If you're going to make black movies only about black people, that's as bad as white movies only about white people.

For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.

The truth of the matter is, I am a black woman, and I am an actor. I don't try to get caught up in being a black actor; I'm just an actor who is a black woman. It's not about forgetting that you're black, but you don't need to be hammered over the head, either; it just is what it is.

I am not going to say that only people of color can write people of color, because that means only white people can write white people, and that's not OK.

It really upsets me that the media insists on turning 'Do the Right Thing' or 'Boyz N the Hood' into 'black films.' They are American films. They may open the window on the black experience, but they had things to say to everybody. That's why they were so successful.

Until 'Moonlight,' I had never seen one black man cook for another on screen. But I wanted the characters to be free of 'groundbreaking' or 'never before.' We were ascribed those things. They weren't the point.

I don't like the term 'black film,' and I am proud to be black.

White people loved 'The Cosby Show,' especially liberal white people. They loved it because it was a great, funny, well - written, and beautifully performed television show.

I don't see how I ever could have thought that having an all-white crew for a special about race would be OK.

Black people, we are not this monolithic group, you know?

I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices.

When I say, I don't care what white people think, I mean that.

In Atlanta, with a large African-American population, Sosa is often considered a black man. In Miami and Los Angeles, with larger Hispanic populations, he is a Latino man, and the black label is rejected as robbing Hispanics of a hero.