People are really paying attention to the comic-book genre, and there's a lot of time and attention being invested in these projects with a wonderful sense of quality control.

I've never seen anyone - and I've had the opportunity to work with some really terrific actors in my time - but Philip Seymour Hoffman is definitely the best I ever had the opportunity to work with.

If you're not careful as an actor, you can find yourself, at a certain point, a little bit bored.

The more you work and get known for something, sometimes things begin to narrow a bit, and your opportunities get more... specific.

'House of Cards' opened some doors. I've been able to tackle some diverse stories and characters.

Your life, your circumstances change, and you have to continue to grow as a person, and once you have means and opportunity, you have to make different choices to protect what you have.

'Mahershala' is my nickname.

At that moment in time when we feel like the other, we were not the person embraced, not one of the cool kids, not in the club - when you're that person, it makes you feel smaller, and when they persecute you as a result, that's a difficult position to be in.

Who is that person that comes around and says, 'You are OK, you are worthy, you are special?' That makes all the difference in the world for many of us. Those are the people we appreciate the most.

I do believe that there are creative chakras or different sorts of energy centers.

I found myself sort of becoming a character actor, though I don't know if that would be my natural makeup.

I haven't gotten to do the leading man thing, so I would love to do that!

To get to play someone who was in some capacity the King of Harlem, that meant something to me. Deep within my bones. I was inspired by the energy that I knew to be a real thing.

What you see in 'Daredevil' and 'Jessica Jones' isn't the Hell's Kitchen of today; it's a version of what it was like.

It's about very talented writers, directors, producers, and actors being in a position for their projects to be supported, but there's just not enough black projects being made.

I owe a lot to my time on 'House of Cards' because, up until I booked that show, I had been working consistently for 12 years, but I wasn't working on anything that mattered in the way 'House of Cards' did to its audience, to casting directors, to directors and producers. The show hit this sweet spot.

You want entertainment in general, every aspect of it, to be more of a reflection of the diverse world that we live in.

Cultures and races are mixing in a very organic way in the world, and that should be reflected in film and television.

I wanted to take on my full name, which was sort of a crazy thing to do considering that we're in Hollywood.

I think if you have any desire to be a leading man or to really carry some of these stories, there's this relationship that has to be cultivated with an audience. People have to be able to say your name.

Marvel has such a huge slice of the pie.

At a certain point in my career, I was probably having a difficult time 'holding space.' So you get a character that has to be commanding in order for him to resonate and make sense.

The call for diversity is about recognizing that in order to be in the conversation come awards season, it goes back to the content that is being produced.

When you have these surprise breakout films that do well, that have good performances in them, it puts a lot of pressure on the Academy to recognize those projects, so it's more of a conversation about what is greenlit.

I think #OscarsSoWhite is about there not truly being enough people of color represented.

Hollywood has to be a better reflection of the world we live in.

Come on, we would be foolish to say that there's never been African-American leads in some capacity, people of color in some capacity, leading shows or what have you. But it hasn't happened enough and in a manner that is an accurate reflection of the world that we live in.

'Luke Cage' is about a reluctant superhero who lives in the shadows in Harlem. He has to decide if he's going to step up and fight for the heart of the city and defend the people against Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes, my character, who kinda wants to keep everything in order and intact. I'm the criminal element in the story.

In thinking about it, the villains often have a little bit more range because their morality is different. You can have just a really good time as an actor, and there is just more there that you can explore on that side of the story.

If you're throwing someone off a roof, you're throwing them off the roof. It's there. You don't have to do anything extra with that. The audience is obviously going to react to that because it's such a heightened thing to do. But in the other moments, you really look for ways to craft those, because they're more important, honestly.

I don't have a wallet. I carry my driver's license and a couple of credit cards in my phone. That, and a money clip.

The people that I admire have a wonderful balance of self-belief and humility.

There's nothing fun about 30 people standing around watching you, like, pretend to pleasure someone. Nothing enjoyable about it, believe me.

I've been working almost 20 years, and I think I've worked with maybe one black director of photography in that time. Maybe two women directors or DPs. Maybe. And I've done a lot of TV. That's a lot of people I've worked with.

I'd never been around or seen a black showrunner, and in some ways you wish that it wasn't a big deal.

'Free State of Jones' went beyond that. It got into how the South wasn't as homogenous as we thought it was - or even the North for that matter, where we like to assume everyone wanted to free the slaves and they were all abolitionists. It actually shows how complex these ideologies were on both sides.

Now, being one who lived in the era of Obama, there are so many markers of improvement made. It's hard to be mindful of that, in the same way you're going, 'Oh everything's cool now!' and it isn't. But I try to be mindful of how much of an improvement there has been because that gives hope. You need hope. I need hope!

When I was growing up, I was told you could be anything you want to be, but I didn't really believe that because you couldn't be president. Like, I knew that; we never had a black president.

Kids feel like they have to puff up or shrink. These reclusive qualities begin to develop because you feel that who you are is going to either be accepted or rejected by your family and friends.

I know someone from growing up who is in jail right now for the rest of his life, but he was one of the sweetest people I ever knew.

People do bad things, but that doesn't mean they don't have other colors or qualities.

I approach things from my feeling first. I have to get a feel for the character. I'll do that through music; I'll do it through what is naturally popping up for me when I read the script. My ideas or whatever the occupation of the character might be.

There's this Method Man album called 'Tical.' It's his first album. I would just listen to that every day, because the album feels like, if it were a film, it would be black and white. It feels like there's a war percolating throughout the album itself. It's dark, and it has a nice forward pace to it.

I always felt that Jay Z, if he had a different upbringing, could be on Wall Street or in politics. If you really listen to Jay Z talk, he's kind of the smartest guy in the room.

Family are the people that can hurt you the most.

People will burn through a show in two or three days, and then you're left feeling empty for 51 weeks.

I thought, 'I've been doing this for 16 years professionally. I have a window where I want to play leading parts.'

Coming off 'House of Cards,' playing someone so straight-laced, I was getting offered a lot of F.B.I. agents.

You can't watch 'Daredevil' or 'Jessica Jones' or the Marvel films and not be aware that the villain has to be awesome. I've always wanted to have more space. And the scope, morally, is more broad for the villain than the hero.

'Moonlight' is a project that resonated with me more than anything else. I wouldn't have done 'Luke Cage' if they hadn't made time for 'Moonlight.'