Laurence Fishburne Quotes

I first wanted to be an actress after seeing a play - not a movie.

I started off doing plays as a theater actor. But I never thought of it in terms of it leading anywhere. I was just trying to be the best actor that I could be in the context of what I was doing.

I'm lucky enough to say my day job is acting. I cut my teeth as a theater actor and playwright in New York.

In Michigan, if you want to act, it's local theater, it's high school theater and it's going to camp and putting on plays in the summer, and I always loved doing that. There was something that just drew me to it.

I'm very proud of my New York debut. I played Oscar Wilde in 'Gross Indecency' off Broadway in about 1997. And I was very proud of my Broadway debut in 'The Iceman Cometh.'

When I was about 12, I saw Mark Rylance do this play in New York City called 'Jerusalem' and that really changed the game for me.

I started doing regional theater. My first job was 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at Dallas Theater Center.

I've often wondered about people that come to the profession late in life. I've wanted to be an actor since the first grade. I watched a play being performed by the third grade class, and it was... magic.

I grew up performing and singing. And acting, the idea of it just sort of fell into my lap. And I was a little hesitant at first, but I was like, 'Okay, I'll try it.'

I started acting without any vocation. I continued out of love.

I started getting on my feet and clowning around, and they ended up putting me in a play when I was 12. And I was hooked.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

First I wanted to be an ice skater, and then I saw 'Bye, Bye Birdie,' and everything changed. I'm glad I learned through the process of theater.

I've been performing my whole life. My mom signed me up for a theater program when I was five - I was the evil queen in 'Once Upon a Mattress.'

I started in community theater at 7 years old. I loved being on stage and performing. At the time, I didn't correlate that the stuff I was doing on stage was the same thing that I was watching in my favorite films.

My first acting class was taught by a little known playwright, David Mamet, who then cast me in my first play, opposite John Malkovich.

I always assumed I'd spend my life happily performing in artsy-fartsy little theaters.

I spent a lot of time in the trenches in New York doing a lot of off-off-off Broadway theater.

My goal was always to get better roles, and in my case, performing on stage really led to great opportunities. My breakthrough came when I did Calder Willingham's 'End as a Man' on stage and was spotted by Max Arnow, who'd been the casting chief for Columbia.

I went to anything that was on at the Lyceum in Edinburgh. I was quite geeky. There was a production of 'Look Back in Anger' with David Tennant and Kelly Reilly in it, and it blew me away. I still think about it and look back on it as the moment where I decided, 'I want to do that.'

From about ten, I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I started doing vocal shows and stuff.

I saw my sister in this production of 'Whistle Down the Wind' - my sister was a really big theater kid - and when I saw her do that, I was so obsessed. Those were like my first words; I was singing along to the songs. From that point on, I did theater, and then I got into acting in film and television.

Yes, I'd really love to get a chance to tread the boards in the West End, that would be incredible.

I'd studied acting in New York when I left Pierre - that was the big thing that I did. I worked very hard at it, actually.

I really, specifically, love acting, and I think it's a really cool thing to be really indulgent and follow that.