What's nice about having an engineering degree is everybody thinks you are smart.
Ato Essandoh
I have the softest beard in the world. As far as growing it, it doesn't itch, and it's so non-intrusive. But, I am so sick of hair on my face and on my head. Because I'm not a really hairy guy, I'm not really used to it.
'Copper' is my first period piece. It's funny because I've been doing a lot of episodes of 'Elementary' with Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu; they keep bringing me back on the show, and so I go from being an outstanding black doctor to being a kind of hood, ex-car thief who went through rehab in 'Elementary.'
I see it in a lot of period pieces where everybody is standing and talking, in a stilted, archaic way, instead of being loose in the world. So, I try to do a little bit of research, just so that I can feel like I'm grounded, but then I try to bring as much of my human understanding that I can, under the filter of it being 1865.
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.
White artists have made millions of dollars off music they stole from black artists. I don't blame all the white artists. I'm a huge Stevie Ray Vaughn fan, and he was always very gracious about where he learned his music. But a lot of the time, you'd think the white guys thought it up. Hey, hasn't anyone heard of Muddy Waters?
I never thought I'd play an orthodox Jewish man.
You look at how Barack Obama has had to conduct himself as President. It reminds me of Jackie Robinson, how he had to be very careful to reassure people that this was all right. And you still have people trying to tear him down. They make up all sorts of lies, with the goal of making him seem illegitimate.
All of my friends on the street we're Jewish. I went to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs. I even learned a little Hebrew.
I have the softest beard in the world. As far as growing it, it doesn't itch, and it's so non-intrusive. But I am so sick of hair on my face and on my head.
I never heard about tefillin. I was unfamiliar with the deep history and ritual of being an Orthodox Jew. Before you get out of bed, you say a prayer, and then you get out of bed, say another one.
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.
If you get too deep into the history, what often happens to a lot of us actors is that we become stilted. We forget that we're reading about something that happened a hundred years ago. If we don't put the human emotion that would naturally be in there, we end up being stilted instead of being human beings.
You don't want to be a gimmick. You don't want to be a set piece, where people go, 'Hey, that's weird.'
My dad, when he was young, did Shakespeare in school, and my mom was a little bit of an artist, but everybody was pragmatic.
Everything musically, for me, there's two kinds of music. There's Prince and Jimi Hendrix and then Miles Davis and everything filters through that.
When 'Goodfellas' is on TNT, and they've taken out all the curse words and put Tide commercials in the middle of it, I'll still watch 'Goodfellas' because it's that great of a movie.
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.
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.
Quentin Tarantino and Sam Jackson are the reasons I'm an actor.
I was in chemical engineering at Cornell University. My girlfriend at the time dared me to do a play. I knew there was something I wanted, not necessarily engineering.
My parents are from Ghana. Until I was 17, I thought you had to go to college. I had no idea. I didn't know it was not an option.
Another benefit of going to Cornell is that 90 percent of your friends are doctors.
When you're a guest star on a movie or a TV show, I always say it's like being invited to a family reunion, but it's not your family. So you don't belong - they're being nice to you, but you don't fit in completely; you don't know everybody's story. You don't have a history.
Once you get my snark going, I'll just start snarking it up all over Twitter.
I have a theater company that I'm a part of, Colt Coeur, and they do some really rad projects.
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.
Macklemore gets a Grammy over Kendrick Lamar. I still can't get over that. But again, it's not Macklemore's fault. It's the way of the country.
I'd never thought about acting as a job. I was an engineer; I was in science and technology. I loved movies and television growing up, but I'd never thought about it as, 'Oh, that guy Denzel Washington is employed as an actor.'
I was a chemical engineer in school. And, randomly, an ex-girlfriend dared me to do a play.
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 first time I ever heard the blues, my parents had a stack of records that they weren't using anymore. I found them when I was ten; I didn't know what it was. But I found Lightnin' Hopkins.
A really good impressionist, even if they don't look at all like the person they're impersonating, it's a weird thing where they start to look like that person. It's kind of odd.
The first time I was onstage, I felt like the audience was breathing with me. I don't know if I was good or not; I just knew I was having a ball, and for the first time, I felt I belonged somewhere.
I know I'm supposed to say this, but I really, genuinely think Matt Damon is a great dude.
Jason Bourne is supposed to be really sneaky and spry, but as soon as he walks by, everybody pulls out their cell phones and starts recording. That level of fame is wild to see.
When I tell my friends, 'I'm in the 'Bourne' movie,' they're like, 'Congratulations! Wait... is Matt Damon coming back?' I go, 'Yeah.' And they're like, 'Yo! Matt Damon! Matty D!' Everyone pretends they know Matt Damon. It's exciting.
I grew up listening to blues and rock n' roll and other music, but, legitimately, the Stones is one of my favorite bands in the world.
There's some dues that you just have to pay in life.
If you're going to sign a contract, there are things you have to understand you might have to do. If you don't, then you walk away.
Just the little bit that I've learned about Judaism, I didn't realize how, dare I say, intense that religion is as far as all of the things that you have to know and remember and the ritualism of it.
I think I'm a good actor, but to replicate tens of thousands of man hours in surgery is really hard.
Growing up near Scarsdale, I should have had at least one Jewish girlfriend. Maybe at some point it'll happen.
I've never dated a Jewish woman.
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.
Our next black president, I think, can be more like Muhammad Ali.
You look at how Barack Obama has had to conduct himself as president. It reminds me of Jackie Robinson, how he had to be very careful to reassure people that this was all right.
In a law enforcement situation, black people are not always treated the same as white people would be.
