Wendell Pierce

“We always see abhorrent behavior and say why, but then we get mad when somebody tries to answer.”

“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.”

“I worked at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, lived there for three years, and lived in Baltimore for 12 years.”

“Jon Voight is a consummate American actor.”

“One of the real worries I had before the first season of 'Treme' aired was that, man, people in New Orleans really hold movie and television shows up to a high standard in how they depict th...”

“The social justice movement of the 21st century is economic development.”

“I played trumpet for about two weeks. Sixth grade. And I didn't practice. Maybe a little longer than two weeks, but I didn't practice and I was faking it.”

“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...”

“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 N...”

“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.”

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

“The power of a sports team in a community it's almost indescribable.”

“Culture is the intersection of people and life itself. It's how we deal with life, love, death, birth, disappointment... all of that is expressed in culture.”

“A lot of cats in New Orleans, very soulful, very soulful musicians and they assume that they're singers. And they just make that assumption. And so when there's a little intonation problem,...”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“New Orleans, more than many places I know, actually tangibly lives its culture. It's not just a residual of life; it's a part of life. Music is at every major milestone of our life: birth, m...”

“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 frightene...”