Cress Williams

On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!' ”

I realized that being that No. 1 on the call sheet sets the tone. That knowledge, it's important to me that everyone - not just actors, not just myself, but everyone - have a workplace that they enjoy, where they feel respected, that they have creative input, and that they feel is a place that they're excited to go to work. ”

A lot of times, people believe that until you're a certain-list actor, you say yes to everything; you're not allowed to say no. But early on, something went off in me, and if something didn't ring true for a myriad of reasons, I would say no and was fortunate enough to have people around me that were OK with that. ”

I'm a big fan of superheroes and fantasy and sci-fi. I have been since I was a child. ”

I was a poor kid. I grew up watching film and television but primarily television. And I graduated high school, and I knew I wanted to go to college because nobody in my family had. So I was like, 'I'll go and be a theater major.' ”

I didn't really know of 'Black Lightning' until I got the script and started to investigate - it wasn't a hero that I grew up with. So I didn't know if his powers were natural or if it was the suit, but those things are, for me, very important. I really like the idea that his powers are his - that whether he has the suit or not, he has them. ”

There are aspects of small town life that I really like - the routine nature of it, the idea of people knowing you and your likes and dislikes. ”

Sometimes you got to mess stuff up to get change going. ”

Back in the day as a kid, I was really drawn to the Hulk because it just felt so human and was probably one of the first stories that I felt emotionally invested in and not just thought it was really cool. You really feel for that person and put yourself in that situation. ”

What's great about acting is that there's never a moment when you're like, 'OK, I got this, I understand this.' You're portraying life, and it's a craft that only gets better with time - kind of like playing a musical instrument: the more you get to play it, the better you are. ”