The old G's, or the gangsters, turned me away from the street because they knew my dad, and they had a lot of respect for my dad, but because I was an athlete.

It was funny on '24' because I'm a Scots-Canadian, and I was working with the great Scottish actor Tony Curran, and we were both playing Russian gangsters.

I'm the gorgeous gangster.

I'm an emotional gangster. I cry once every month.

Music definitely gave me a focus. I was an artist without an outlet. Let's just say if I was not famous, I could have been infamous. I could've had my own episode of 'American Gangster.'

George Raft may or may not have gone both ways, but he was very sensitive to what they said about him, and it was one factor why he decided to play all those gangsters in the movies.

Accosting somebody in public can be regrettable. Accosting a gangster can be hazardous.

If you are black on television, you are probably going to be some kind of thug, gangster, or portrayed in a negative light. If you are some type of Muslim, you are going to be blowing stuff up. If you are Hispanic, you are going to be some type of gangbanger. I've felt like this for years.

The primary school I attended in Shanghai was a very liberal one, established by scholars who had return from an education in France. The children of leading families were enrolled there, including the son of a well-known man believed to be a top gangster of the underworld!

A lot of my friends are gangsters. Not like gangsters - well, yeah, all sorts of levels of criminality - but not the types that are preying on innocent people. I have no interest in the type of criminality that has no respect for collateral damage.

If you look at my acting career, I never played a role that was similar to anything my brother played. I was always cast as the bad guy or a gangster, because my brother didn't do those kind of roles.

The thing that was fascinating and frustrating about Pac was that he clearly knew better than to go down the gangster road that he went down. Pac knew - and he was right - that thug energy could be redirected into fearless positivity.

I decided that if the police couldn't catch the gangsters, I'd create a fellow who could.

I saw the police thriller The Blue Lamp' and remember realizing the power that Dirk Bogarde as the gangster exerted over the audience simply by his expressions in the close-ups. I could see how the people around me reacted to him and realized that I wanted to have the same effect.

Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power.

I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'

When you see my performances, even people that you might have known, like Nicky Barnes in 'American Gangster,' you have to get over the fact that I look like Cuba Gooding, Jr. But once you find truth in the performance, if I'm doing my job right, you believe everything.

Gangster movies are the inheritor of the Greek tragedy: it's the only genre where the audience will be disappointed if there's not a tragic ending.

When you're 16, the top of the world is directing a gangster movie.

Ice Cube is doing so great. He went from being this hardcore gangster rapper to this actor now. He's doing children's movies and all this stuff - he's rocking it.

I like to mumble when I act, 'cause I think it's more realistic. For some reason, the impediment has given me the accent of a Mexican gangster.

I'm the number-one fan of gangster movies.

Maybe it's stress or anger or adrenaline or disillusionment or a bullying nature or simple fear of getting killed themselves, but there is a problem if a cop cannot tell the difference between a menacing gangster and the far more common person they encounter whose life is a little frayed and messy.

We get the impression through film and TV that Americans are violent gangsters with guns or upper-middle-class people in romcoms. I really liked the people. They were really warm. They could have been Brits. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

I'd love to play a gangster but I think people might say I looked a bit too young and cheeky to play a character who'd just blown someones head off!

I've got songs that'll make a gangster cry.

Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.

The old G's, or the gangsters, turned me away from the street because they knew my dad, and they had a lot of respect for my dad, but because I was an athlete.

I consciously decided not to be a 'London' actor. Those gangster movies made a lot of East End actors think they were movie stars. And I was very aware that they were going to go out of fashion.

I had the advantage of reading the book, and when the script was first submitted to me, it was just another gangster story - the east side taking over the west side and all that.

I think I could totally be a gangster, but I could never be the kind of gangster that carries things out myself. I would have to be the kingpin that has my minions go and do the dirty bidding. I think I'd be pretty good at giving orders.