Quotes by Orlando Jones

Belly was not a bad movie. It was visually very interesting.

Comedy just seemed like the way in.

Every time I ever saw a paraplegic, the story is always about that person's handicap. I said to the Farrellys, If I do this movie, I don't wanta make fun of his handicap. If we got it right, people will forget that he's handicapped.

I walked in thinking, 'I have ten movies under my belt and now they want me to go back to making commercials?' I said, if I do that, I want it to be funny.

I want balance. I want to see as many black professionals as possible. I don't care if a guy plays a wild, broad, completely downtrodden character, but I also want to see an average joe; the middle class has been completely unrepresented.

I'm of two minds about the NAACP, I'll be brutally honest. When I was writing for 'Sinbad' and 'Roc Live,' I remember the pilot for Martin coming on, and a year later, the NAACP giving him an Image Award. A few years later, Martin was under fire for being coonish or whatever the word was people were using. And I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

In this movie, I wanted to do a black-white relationship that wasn't playing on all the old cliches. Y'know, the black guy has just got out of jail or whatever.

Most of my friends between 21 and 31 are at different stages of figuring out what the hell they are going to do with their lives. It's a big part of our generation. What is the next step?

Quite honestly, I didn't think the deal was going to make, because I wanted part of the creative control. I was impressed that they were making an offer to a non-athlete young black male to be a spokesperson for two and a half years. To their credit, they said, absolutely yes, they never questioned anything I wanted to do.

Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando. And in the shrinking world of sound bites, the Internet, and other mass media, there were going to be fewer actors and more personalities.

That was one of the things that interested me about the character. He doesn't want to be a hero, and has no real desire to save the earth or discover aliens. He's sniffing around looking to see what will fall in his lap.

That's how I found myself in the advertising world, with my partner. I was trying to get a tape of me doing something that I thought was funny.

To be honest, I just didn't want to say Thank you, Please, and Come again for the rest of my life. I felt like if I wanted to do this - films and TV - I didn't have the expectation that someone else would write for me. So I started writing for myself. And for the most part, I lied.

You give the guy an Image Award three years in a row and then turn on him like that? If that's the role they want to fulfill, they need to send a clearer message.