Don Cheadle
Don Cheadle
Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle Jr. is an American actor, writer, producer, and director. He had an early role in Hamburger Hill, before building his career in the 1990s with performances in Devil in a Blue Dress, Rosewoodand Boogie Nights. He started a collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh that resulted in the films Out of Sight, Trafficand Ocean's Eleven. Other films include The Rat Pack, Things Behind the Sun, Swordfish, Crash, Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, Reign Over Me, Talk to Me,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth29 November 1964
CityKansas City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
The process changes slightly from role to role. Obviously, there are different things you're called on to do. You're not digging deep for Basher Tarr like I was for Paul Rusesabagina, but at the end of the day it's still all make-believe and you still are trying as realistically as you can to depict these characters.
I'm trying to steal from everybody. So yeah, there's cats that I'm personally affiliated with - Carl Franklin, Paul Thomas Anderson - and others that I don't know personally but their work I'm a big admirer of, like Martin Scorsese. But I'm hoping to come up with a language that is mine, that's specific to my take on this material.
Speak up when you're supposed to, as opposed to trying to write prescriptions for the way people should live.
Living by example - that's always a better teacher than trying to preach.
I don't like movies that are trying to preach and trying to tell you how to feel.
We're trying to do what Miles Davis would have wanted us to do, which is approach it as artists with his life as the canvas.
Just from him doing the things that he knew how to do, moment to moment -- it's not some mythic figure. It's just a common, everyday man. And I think that's what people are connecting to.
Please keep it up, don't drop it. This was the scene ... that really made me want to do the movie.
No, it's not comfortable; I hate watching myself. You don't like when you hear your voice on your voicemail; imagine having to see yourself 30 feet wide and 30 feet big.
If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.
For me, it's always just been about finding material that I think is creative and interesting and fun and something that can expand me and that I can hopefully do something with.
We believe that it really celebrates the definition of what an ensemble is all about. I mean there's 74 of us.
I don't believe that the U.S. needs to take a police role. I think it needs to support African nations that have said they want to become a part of the solution.
We cannot stand here in a free society, proclaiming that we care about human life, and do nothing in the face of this, in my opinion,