Wendell Pierce Quotes

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Wendell Pierce

Profession : Actor

Birth : December 8, 1962

The world, post-Katrina, was a hard time for my city. The hardest time. For people who didn't live through it, no words can fully express the pain, the rage, the grief, and the futility we New Orleanians felt. For the people who did, words seemed like a feeble protest against a relentless night without end.

Wendell Pierce

In our house, my dad had a chair. It was a Barcalounger, big and comfortable. If we missed him or wanted comfort when he wasn't home, we'd just climb into the chair and let it envelop us.

Wendell Pierce

In 1974, when the city of Boston was desegregating its schools, I watched the news with my dad and saw the police escorts in riot gear, the protesters screaming at the buses, small frightened faces in their windows.

Wendell Pierce

My dad prepared me for the worst of times while also enabling me to succeed in the best. He taught me to confront the insidiousness of racism head on, no matter what the ramification, so it will not fester. Defeat it and get past it. That was The Talk. Nothing scared me after that.

Wendell Pierce

When a sports team is doing well in a city that's going through tough times like New Orleans, like Detroit, it bolsters this real sentiment of 'we can get through this.' And when you have that sentiment, it becomes more than feelings: It's transported into action.

Wendell Pierce

David Simon is a brilliant writer, brilliant at being able to take what is ordinary and make it extraordinary.

Wendell Pierce

I have so much love for art.

Wendell Pierce

I trained at Juilliard so that I could do all kinds of genres, so that's what I'm trained to do.

Wendell Pierce

I consider myself a journeyman actor, and I pride myself and look forward to keeping my career choices as diverse as possible because it challenges me as an actor.

Wendell Pierce

I'm a multitasker, and I kind of like it that way.

Wendell Pierce

Coming out of school, sometimes people can be theater snobs. I only wanted to do theater, highbrow stuff. But what I learned very quickly is there can be good material in every genre.

Wendell Pierce

It strengthens the acting muscles to tap into other parts of yourself. When you can accomplish something that's unexpected, for you as well as the audience, that's really important. It's also very important if you want people considering you for other projects to broaden their view of you.

Wendell Pierce

My father was so against me becoming an actor.

Wendell Pierce

The key, I always thought, to my career would be diversity - a diversity of not only the type of work that you do but the mediums.

Wendell Pierce

Juilliard gave me the ability to go and do classical, contemporary, comedy, drama, everything.

Wendell Pierce

I tell people all the time: get some training and become a student of your craft.

Wendell Pierce

I just know that 'Treme' broke ground when it comes to music and film on television.

Wendell Pierce

Great art, the more specific you are, the more universal it becomes, and that's the thing that I loved about 'The Wire.'

Wendell Pierce

I would love to do an anthology show based on the character of Jesse B. Semple that Langston Hughes wrote about. He's sort of a Forrest Gump character in the midst of 20th century Harlem.

Wendell Pierce

I would love to see a real story about Fred Hampton.

Wendell Pierce