Joe Morton
Joe Morton
Joseph Thomas "Joe" Morton, Jr.is an American stage, television, and film actor. He worked with film director John Sayles in The Brother from Another Planet, City of Hopeand Lone Star. Other films he appeared in include Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Of Mice and Men, Speed, Apt Pupil, What Lies Beneath, Ali, Paycheck, Stealthand American Gangster. In 2014, Morton won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Rowan Pope, Olivia Pope's father,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth18 October 1947
CountryUnited States of America
It's like any other dream, everyone takes out their hammer and chisel and go after that rock until finally somebody finishes it.
Television has been really good to me in terms of the roles I've been able to get on TV as opposed to the roles I've gotten in film and in theater.
You get to work with incredible directors like a John Woo and James Cameron, so it's certainly not anything I'm going to complain about.
I don't do theatre as much anymore because of the time it takes and it can't always pay me what I need to be paid at that particular time.
Yes, I would love to play one of the leads in one these movies and have all those challenges and deal with all those complications, but the business being what it is, there is a slot for me in these kinds of films, so I enjoy them, and I enjoy the people that I work with.
The advice that I usually give to young actors is that if you can create a character for the stage and keep that character fresh for at least 6 months that means you're doing the show eight times a week.
Film and television is just a different technique in terms of how to approach the camera but basically the job is the same; but what you learn as a craft in theater, you can then learn to translate that into any mediums.
I came into the industry at a time when there weren't a lot of choices to what you could do.
I think it talks about that there needs to be some proactive attack against drugs infiltrating our culture.
I love doing movies but I loved doing theatre just as much.
I think it talks about the fact that there are black people in the world who have tremendous amount of talents and have no channel through which they can those talents.
I think people believe that I give ant aura of someone who has both feet on the ground.
I think the thing is with a movie that has this much science fiction in it; you need characters who are more science fact, if you know what I mean, than they are human.
If there's no craft there, then once the looks go, there goes your career.