John David Washington

I've had the acting bug since I was, like, five. But growing up, I saw how people treated me differently when they knew who my father was, even the stuff I did on the field. Sometimes I'd rush for 100 yards, and the headline would be, 'Denzel's son runs for 100 yards.' That's where the suppression of that bug came from.

The injury that ended my time in football turned out to be serendipitous. I tore my Achilles while training for a pending tryout with the New York Giants, and when it snapped, so did my career, basically. That's what led me to gain the confidence to get into the acting world on my own terms.

Coming from a football background, when everybody is doing their job and operating on such a high level, it only motivates you to do the same.

I was ignorant before I did my research of a lot of African American police officers out there who are doing their job and doing it the right way.

There's some men and women out there that are doing their job the right way. They're protecting and serving complete strangers in their communities the right way. And it's a thankless job. Obviously, there's a lot of information out on cops not doing their jobs correctly, but the ones that are should be celebrated.

It's a thankless job for police officers, period, but specifically for men and women of color protecting and serving.

Football is the ultimate team sport. You're dependent on 10 other people on the field to have success on a particular play to get to the common goal, which is the win. On a set, we need everybody doing their job and pulling their weight.

I got a lot of whoopings back in the day. I was a very curious kid.

It's a beautiful thing when you serve the team.

Football was the best route to obtain my independence.

I got a scholarship, so I was getting my independence and not paying for school. And then here comes the NFL. 'Now you got an opportunity to get drafted? Guess we'll do that.' I did, all right.

I went to bar mitzvahs as a kid. I had a lot of classmates who are Jewish.