It's not what you are in Hollywood - it's what people think you are.
Sometimes I've felt that the industry has typecast me as a certain kind of character. But then I think all it really takes is one role, the right role, to shake that up and change that perception.
Well, there's different shades of Hollywood, sure. I mean, I'm working in this business but I'm not Hollywood.
It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
Clothes are about manipulations: how I feel, how I want to feel and how I want others to feel about me.
I'm sure that having acted like an asshole for a great deal of my life, then having played assholes for a good part of my life, created a perception that I'm an asshole.
Everyone thinks they went to high school with me. I take it as a compliment that I look different in every role.
I always tell people you can take the thugest thug in the world, and if you put a suit on him, he'll act different, trust me.
People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person.
Are you who I think you are?
The only time my Dad ever said I might have not gotten something because of how I look was when I auditioned for Tyler Perry's 'Meet the Browns.' My dad didn't think I was 'black enough' for the show. My dad isn't the most politically correct person.
I studied political science and international relations, so I never considered myself an artist.
I'm portrayed as this tough broad, but I'm not.
...and yet I am what they think I am.
How the world perceives you is largely out of your control.
I'm obviously an American citizen. My parents are American citizens. But I'm not looked at as an American.
Dani said this woman, with whom she’d lived for two years, had never known her. “I feel like people accept the first thing I show them,” she said, “and that’s all I ever am to them.
Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that's the truth in people's minds.
Be careful with how you make the world perceive you, because they'll perceive you like that for the rest of your life.
We so love to stereotype people in this country - I can relate to that myself as I've experienced it. By taking on challenges over the years, I've tried to show people I'm not just some 'posh boy' and that there's far more to me.
Appear as you are, or be as you appear.
People know you as an actor, and labels are so comfortable for people. That syndrome is always hard to get past.
You're so connected to people and they all know how to get to you, and everyone knows who you are, so explicitly. They think they know you. It's like, 'You really think you know me? I don't know me! How do you know I'm not different around someone else?
I never felt big enough playing Thor. And then people talk about you like you're 9-foot tall and 800 pounds. I'm well aware of the illusion. There's not a second where I go: Yeah, I'm a god.
A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.
