Don Cheadle
Don Cheadle
Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle Jr. is an American actor, writer, producer, and director. He had an early role in Hamburger Hill, before building his career in the 1990s with performances in Devil in a Blue Dress, Rosewoodand Boogie Nights. He started a collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh that resulted in the films Out of Sight, Trafficand Ocean's Eleven. Other films include The Rat Pack, Things Behind the Sun, Swordfish, Crash, Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, Reign Over Me, Talk to Me,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth29 November 1964
CityKansas City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
I'm trying to steal from everybody. So yeah, there's cats that I'm personally affiliated with - Carl Franklin, Paul Thomas Anderson - and others that I don't know personally but their work I'm a big admirer of, like Martin Scorsese. But I'm hoping to come up with a language that is mine, that's specific to my take on this material.
I'm a parent. I have kids, and what's happening with our waters, and our oceans, and what's happening with deforestation, and all these things that human beings are having negative impacts on at this time, are concerning to me. I wanted to do whatever I could to be a part of the solution and not just be a part of the problem.
Water is an issue, and, clearly, what's happening with the filth in our environment and the levels of carbon monoxide in our atmosphere are the really scary issues right now, the very troubling ones.
Once the steam engine went away and we started moving into burning fossil fuels - not just burning them, but everything we do with oil - we've been experiencing [these problems] at an accelerated rate. The scary end-game scenario is getting closer and closer, about what we're going to be able to do to sustain life on this planet as we have come to know it. And I think this is a very real possibility, that we could be dealing with conditions we have no idea how to wrestle with.
One thing that you consistently see everywhere is that the poor and the under-represented are always the ones who are going to suffer the most and get the short end of the stick.
I think having good family and friends really helps to ground you.
Speak up when you're supposed to, as opposed to trying to write prescriptions for the way people should live.
You should do what you're supposed to do and hope that that ripples out.
Living by example - that's always a better teacher than trying to preach.
I think that it's much more important to do than to say. And you learn that a lot from your kids, who are watching you, you know?
Every time I've learned something, I've realized there are a hundred more things I don't know about the thing I just learned.
I prefer film to TV because of the amount of time film affords you that TV doesn't (though theater is probably my favorite and the scariest place of all).
I don't like movies that are trying to preach and trying to tell you how to feel.
I want to be a part of great things.