I'm a little sheepish about it. Whenever I meet fans and they're like, 'Oh, you're so sexy,' I just don't get that. There's no way one man can be universally sexy.

I was on a well-beaten path of actors - what we all call 'the Law and Order route'. I spent two years of auditioning for everything... and then 'The Wire' came up.

Actors tend to not know how their performances are going to actually be used. Even though the script says one thing, in the edit, it can be something else.

I'd rather a young black actor read about success as opposed to how tough it was. I get these roles because I can act and that's it. Hopefully that's it.

It's really funny because the same people who loved me as Stringer Bell were the same people that were watching Daddy's Little Girls literally in tears.

I'll always be attached to telly in one way or another, whether it's a character or producer or director, I just love the medium.

Are there differences between black actors’ opportunities and white actors’ opportunities? Yes, there are. It’s been said.

Sean Connery wasn't the Scottish James Bond, and Daniel Craig wasn't the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don't want to be called the black James Bond.

I watch my daughter wanting to be like other kids and getting upset that she's not. But I always try and instill in her the idea that she's perfect as she is.

White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change.

Because I was big, I didn't have to listen to anyone doubting me. I was just considered good at football or whatever, there were no questions about it.

As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with...

I'm not a popular actor. I don't necessarily want to be famous. I want to be known for great work. I want to be known to surprise audiences.

Yeah, I know, any time you hear an actor say, 'I do music', you cringe. But I want to be gradual with my music. I want to earn my stripes.

My definition of bad-ass is that I'm a force of nature and true spirit. I'm self-admitting that, and it sounds vain to say that, but I am.

I get criticized for taking roles in films like Ghost Rider 2, but if you look at my résumé, dude, I've mixed it up as much as I can.

The English are good at bad guys - the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.

When you come from an under-privileged background, oftentimes, you feel a little overwhelmed by your education or your lack of.

I love working. I'm a workaholic and I'm really privileged for some of the jobs I get offered and so I just want to keep going.

[Sometimes] I sit in front of my [gaming] console with my headphones on and I play. I love that. It's a nice form of escapism.

I love bikes. I used to own one, but I fell off it when I was younger and that was the end of my bike riding days until now.

I still sing on bits and pieces. Singing's something that I love to do, but it's not something that I pursue as a career.

I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the US. It took three years to get the accent right.

The only thing I change mainly is my sneakers. I love sneakers. But everything's sort of black or jeans. Jeans, always.

I'm tactile, very tactile. A woman who has really nice, looked-after skin is such a turn-on for me. It's always sexy.

I did a rendition of Billie Jean which is on my Soundcloud. I put it on Twitter, and it got about 3000 hits that day.

I was always a real athletic kid. Then when I got older, I just figured it was part of life to keep training.

I think there's a tendency for actors like myself, and I don't mean to generalize myself, but I've played 'men's men,' if you will, characters that are simmering rage and calculated. There's a trend not to play anything that is opposed to that.

I come from an era, in my world, where you just had to define yourself as who you are and what you do. I happen to be an actor. I happen to be someone that loves to act, that also likes music, that also likes to speak, and that also has an opinion.

What kind of role do you play after someone like Stringer, you know what I mean? You play another gangster. What’s the point of that? I’ve played the gangster. I try to keep it really varied; it just makes for more of a fun and interesting career.

I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture, I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.

When I look at my body of work, I've played a lot of characters who are morally conflicted - 'I'm right, no I'm wrong, I don't know what to do!' I want to play more characters who don't care as much, and who aren't as measured. They are what they are, no apologies.

As much as it's nice to step into that massive world of Hollywood and be a big, famous actor, I prefer the career of actors that have really chosen smartly and done really amazing performances. Maybe they're not as known, but their careers are a bit more interesting.

One of my first jobs was in a soap opera, five days a week. And what I found is, although there are different directors coming in and different crews, you just lived in your character. It's the nature of the story, the ongoing story, and it can get deeper and deeper.

The role of my agent has just been to get me in the room. If I can get in the room - say the character is just a charming man who lives next door - then I'll walk in there and be as charming as I can and they will think to themselves, 'I don't see why we can't cast him.

I was cast in 'Thor' and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good.

We're all human beings. Experience is experience, let's just be honest. Let's not try and dissect suffering into a race, or whatever you want to call it. We're all human beings, one way or another. All races have gone through times that are challenging; that's part of being a human.

There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't.

Being able to work with Ridley Scott on this film is like being able to play on the Olympic team for actors.

Television, for me, is a medium that I'm probably always going to be attached to, one way or another.

I've got two smoking guns that just look incredible, and I love to pull them out whenever I can.

I don't get recognised that much yet in London, but when I do I get a real sense of achievement.

Every leading lady I work with, I'll see if I can get a song out of them and put it on an album.

I've always been DJing; it's just I'm making more of a push for it, making it more public.

It could be Grammy night, Oscar night, whatever - I don't feel the pressure to be there.

Working at BBC, at the head of one of the top dramas, is a tradition for great actors.

What really excites me in a project is when it goes in a way you haven't been before.

Television is where I cut my teeth.

I'm never shaken or stirred.

If I was gonna go to jail, I don't want to go to jail for stealing a bottle of water. I'll steal that $20 million. At least then it was worth it.