Ato Essandoh

I think I'm a good actor, but to replicate tens of thousands of man hours in surgery is really hard. ”

I love the notion of a dude sitting there with an untuned guitar tapping his foot and just singing his passion out; that's what got me into music in the first place. ”

The Chinese Student Association at Cornell put together their own play. It was all Asian people in the cast except for me, because they wanted to do a couple of scenes about an interracial relationship. I was the only non-Asian person on stage; the entire audience was Asian apart from my 10 friends that showed up. ”

There's some dues that you just have to pay in life. ”

It's not selling out, necessarily, to do something to gain some kind of notoriety that gives you the cache to do be able to go and do something else that you want. There's some dues that you just have to pay in life. ”

Traveling, I've met Ghanaian people who have seen me in minor stuff, but they see the name Ato Essandoh, and they recognize it as a Ghanaian name. They come up to me and are always so excited. You don't think about it, but they really absorb American culture. ”

There is more equity now in movies and TV, although I think its mostly because of changing demographics. It's not a moral proposition. It's good business. Shows about people of all colors are making money. ”

When people say Jerry Lee Lewis invented rock n' roll, they forget Little Richard. People talk about Elvis Presley and forget he was singing black music. I don't blame Elvis. It was the music business figuring it could make more money from this music if it weren't presented from the original source. ”

I have a theater company that I'm a part of, Colt Coeur, and they do some really rad projects. ”

It's funny because as much as I've done Dr. Freeman, I guess because I shave right afterwards, people don't recognize me necessarily as Dr. Freeman, whereas a small role like 'Garden State' or 'Get Him to the Greek', which is the funniest one to me, they're like, 'Hey, you're that dude!' and you're like, 'Oh my God!' Which is awesome. ”