41 Quotes by Stephan James

When we started making 'Selma,' the Black Lives Matter movement didn't exist. The parallels between Martin Luther King staging these marches, suffering police brutality... we weren't even aware when making the film that these sorts of things would start to happen again in 2015.

I'm black, yeah, but I'm just an actor, so everything I do doesn't have to be color-specific or specific to history. But I got to a point where a lot of people wanted to offer me period pieces, like that's the only thing I could do.

I care a lot about who I'm working with as directors and other actors.

I feel like I've always been an actor.

Everything I do is just an opportunity to tell a great story.

My mom used to buy us a whole lot of VHS tapes - we had boxes of them, hundreds of them. So we would just go through movies all the time.

I enjoy challenging perspective - challenging ideas of what it means to be a black man.

I've always been pretty reserved, but after taking drama classes in middle school to get more comfortable performing in front of people, I thought I should try out for television.

I've loved Basquiat since I was 13. From his artwork to his interviews to the way he thought about things, I've always been excited by him.