The advise my dad gave me: "To know is to study." Get some training under your belt, so that nobody what somebody asks you to do, you know how to handle it accordingly. I learned so much while working, because I developed a solid work ethic in school. Whereas, a lot of my friends had no work ethic; and because of that, they're sitting at home today.

Anthony Mackie

Categorized in : School Home Dad

You never see girls running after engineers.

Anthony Mackie

engineers girl running

I got a job as soon as I graduated from school. I always wanted to bartend because I love listening to people and how awful their lives are.

Anthony Mackie

jobs people school

If you want to buy a good movie, you'll buy a good movie. If you don't want to buy a good movie, you'll buy a 'Twilight' movie.

Anthony Mackie

good-movie twilight want

The choices that we make through our lives, the people who intersect us on our path kind of change what our fated destiny is. So some of us are lucky enough for the choices that we make to keep us on our path.

Anthony Mackie

destiny choices people

Every time I get mad, I grab my hammer and make a bookshelf or something.

Anthony Mackie

bookshelves hammers mad

I'm a firm believe that a man looks his best in a suit and I feel like in the late 40's people just dressed up to do everything.

Anthony Mackie

men believe people

Acting is the only medium were people think they can just stand up and do it because they can say lines, but that is not so much the case. You have to study styles and techniques.

Anthony Mackie

style people thinking

Practice your improv more than learn your lines. 'Cause there's no way you'll be able to learn all those lines in a short time. You have to realize what you know and what you don't know - and what you don't know, just come up with three alternate lines or improv that you can put in that spot.

Anthony Mackie

lines three practice

Most of the time when you see a movie, the best character in the movie is not "the guy," it's the guy next to the guy.

Anthony Mackie

next guy character

One thing that I've been very vocal about roles I take, and my representation has been very smart about, is that I didn't go to Juilliard to be "Thug #2" in movies. I like to be challenged. I'd say that about 40% of the roles I've done have been written for white men.

Anthony Mackie

thug smart men

It's because the idea of what's cool is different. When you talk to a girl who goes to regular school, what's cool is whether or not you've been to jail, or if you have a car. If you talk to a girl who goes to art school, what's cool to her is if you do art projects on the weekend with your dad, if you can build something - out-of-the-norm stuff.

Anthony Mackie

dad girl art

Do you want to be an actor, or do you want to be a celebrity? I made that decision when I went to Juilliard. I wanted to be an actor. So, if I get the opportunity to be an actor and do some cool, fun and interesting projects, I’m going to do that.

Anthony Mackie

opportunity fun interesting

I enjoy where I am and I don't have a problem with being Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci, Don Cheadle, or Jeffrey Wright. They're not the lead of every movie they're in, but every time you see them they're really good.

Anthony Mackie

stanley enjoy problem

The stage is my first love.

Anthony Mackie

stage first-love firsts

People don't come to Marvel movies for personal life subplots, no.

Anthony Mackie

subplots personal-life people

People fight for their regulars. It gets dirty sometimes.

Anthony Mackie

fighting people dirty

As an actor, the only thing we can do is play the truth at that moment. Because at any point in time if you play the future, or you play that you know something that the audience does not know, it kills the illusion of reality.

Anthony Mackie

doe play reality

As actors, the great thing about our career is we get to change from role to role. I don't want to be known as "put him in the movie because he has nice abs" guy.

Anthony Mackie

guy nice careers

I haven't been able to grasp the concept of putting your life on the line for whatever reason people go into the military for. Some people just want to pay their bills, some people believe in their country and some people do it because their parents did it, but that's rough.

Anthony Mackie

military believe country

I just don't understand how people can get so caught up in having their picture taken.

Anthony Mackie

caught taken people