Michael K. Williams Quotes

You have to put your character to rest after x amount of years.

I use my job to engage empathy and compassion for people society might stereotype or ostricise.

I don't dabble in politics too much. I'm really ignorant to the world of politics. I'm not that smart, I'm not that cunning, it's just too much smoke and mirrors for me. I just don't want to play that game.

My only goal is to stay focused on my craft and make sure my life is as sharp as it can be to attack any character that is given to me.

My dancing came about as a way to be cool, actually. I knew early on that I was not a street kid. I didn't have the moxie, what it took to run the streets with the dudes that I grew up wanting to emulate. But I had a huge need to be accepted, so I found that I could be the party king. I did drugs really well, and I partied really well.

Ending a television character that you've been, especially someone like Omar Little, it hurts. For me, it's a huge thing. You feel like a part of you is gone.

I don't believe in typecasting. Just because all my characters may come from the other side of the tracks doesn't mean they are all the same. You don't stereotype people and generalize people, everyone's different.

I'm more liable to hurt myself than someone else.

You know, my childhood was pretty colorful; I like to use the word 'turbulent.'

All my characters have playlists.

People misconstrue when I say I was a dancer. I was not classically trained. I was a street dancer, and I got to do what I did in the nightclubs of New York City.

CHILDHOOD IS THAT STATE WHICH ENDS THE MOMENT A PUDDLE IS FIRST VIEWED AS AN OBSTACLE INSTEAD OF AN OPPORTUNITY

I absolutely miss dancing. Don't want to do it for a living, I'm getting old, I can't move like I used to. If I had the opportunity to do something on Broadway or a musical, I would jump at the opportunity.

The most successful people reach the top not because they are free of limitations, but because they act in spite of their limitations

I am a dark-skinned, nappy-headed, scar-faced dude from the streets of Brooklyn. I can't hide from being who I am. It's all over my face.

My dream role is to portray someone like James Baldwin. I've always been a fan of his writing, and I feel like he's one of our unsung heroes. He's been pretty much forgotten, and I think he needs to be recognized. He had to go all the way to Europe to find recognition and acceptance, and I'd just like to bring him to the forefront.

Music is always a part of my characters' make-up.

For me, my past characters been hard, the way they died, being murdered, the sadness that goes around, the death. It's a very hard thing to do.

I come to work on time. I focus on my job. I bust my scenes out and everything else kind of happens from there.

If you've ever felt oppressed on any level, there's something from 'The Wire' that you can take and identify with.

No one wakes up one day and decides they want to become a drug dealer or they want to be a stick-up kid. Those decisions are made after a series of events have happened in one's life.

Doing something that warrants the attention of the President of the United States is super cool.

Revenge is not a positive state of mind or energy to indulge your self in.

People say they love the characters I've chosen in my career. But I didn't choose anything. I just happened to be working and these were offered to me.

The streets would have chewed me up and spit me out and I knew that, but I found my own ways and different knacks for getting in trouble and being reckless with my life. And I've overcome a lot of personal demons and to be alive is really my greatest achievement.

Our criminal justice system has swallowed up too many people I love.

God has blessed me. I've been given a lot. I'm at peace with myself. It's time to give back.

I grew up in East Flatbush in Brooklyn which was an intense neighbourhood filled with different West Indian cultures.

I know nothing of what it is to be a gangster.

My childhood was pretty colorful; I like to use the word turbulent. But it was a great time to grow up, the '70s and '80s in Brooklyn, East Flatbush. It was culturally diverse: You had Italian culture, American culture, the Caribbean West Indian culture, the Hasidic Jewish culture. Everything was kind of like right there in your face. A lot of violence, you know, especially toward the '80s the neighborhood got really violent, but it made me who I am, it made me strong.

Writers will see your work and want to try you in different things but I think you have to stay true to your vehicle. We all have a vehicle. Whether it's a thug, or a school child or the babyface or the sex siren or the video vin, whatever it is ride that until the wheels fall off and eventually, if you build your foundation then you can branch off.

My main goal, starting out as a young actor, was to carry the reins that Pac left off and to reach the depths as an actor that I know he would have reached had he still been here with us.