Andre Braugher

Andre: (on being able to do things he always wanted to do in between movies, instead of seating by the phone and waiting for it to ring) So I took a bike trip to Kansas in May. I got on my bike one day, packed up my junk, waived goodbye to my wife and five weeks later I'm in Kansas. Sometimes I was recognized, but most people didn't believe it was me. It was like, 'What are you doing here on a bike in the middle of nowhere?'.

Andre: To me, the psychology behind the character is critical. So I work very hard to get into the mind of the man that I'm going to be playing, because number one, I want to understand why he's doing what he's doing. It's essential, it's absolutely essential.

Andre: (on what attracted him to The Mist) I read The Mist before I read the adaptation. I knew that Frank Darabont had done it. I had seen both The Green Mile as well as The Shawshank Redemption so I knew he was quite a fine director. I knew he had some insight of Stephen King's work and then I read The Mist, the novella to see what Frank had drawn on and whether it was true to Stephen King's work. Looking at the character, which is not a big character in the film, I was surprised that was this much publicity on my part. I knew I wanted to be a part of this film because I sensed that it would be special. It has all the pedigree of Stephen King, whom I am a great admirer of and Frank Darabont, who has demonstrated time and time again that he is a good director and I wanted to be a part of it.

Andre: (when asked if and how the Million Man March has changed him) I know for myself that I've been changed. I can't judge it by the change with anyone else other than myself. My family life and my ideals, my commitment to the community and to other people - all people - has been improved. I think less about myself and more about my community today. I know for my wife and myself, our commitment as a family to the African community has increased, because we're going to adopt a child. And that's not simply because nature has betrayed us or anything to that effect, but there are kids languishing in foster care or in institutions who need parents. We have a lot of love, and when I asked myself how I could be of greatest service to my community - of maximum benefit to the people around me - it's not by hoarding what I have; it's by sharing. I came away with a commitment to raise a child, to allow the revolution to begin at home.

Andre: (on his philanthropic projects when asked about them) I do make contributions but prefer to do what I do quietly. I do it anonymously when possible and just leave it at that. You may notice you don't hear a lot about me. I share my thoughts about this film and things like that, but that's about it.

Andre: (when asked if he was a science fiction fan) I have been at various times in my life. In my youth, it was more the Conan the Barbarian or Red Sonja--Edgar Rice Burroughs [type] fantasy worlds. And then, later in my college years, I started to deal with parallel worlds, where if you change one aspect, it changes the world. ... More recently, it's more about demographics, evolutionary forces, the next horizons, be it mental or space or deep-sea.

Andre: (when asked how he handled playing a man in 1969 and the same man 30 years later in the movie Frequency) The body deteriorates, but the mind doesn't. You know, I still feel like I'm 25. ... It's not really [an issue] of a changing psyche, but one of physicality. ... [Playing an older man in] the present ... is challenging, without a doubt. Beyond the tedious aspects of the latex special effects, it is interesting to play a 59-year-old man, only in that he has a different perspective on life than his 29-year-old counterpart in the past.

Andre: (when asked if it was fun to get to play the bad guy in Thief and Poseidon after playing a cop several times) Yeah, it's different. Cops and robbers resemble each other, so there's not a lot to learn in terms of learning the logistics of committing the crime or investigating the crime. But there's a certain mindset to playing a thief that differs from playing a cop. And so it took me a certain amount of research to sort of get into the mindset of a thief. I read several books and talked to my technical adviser many times to try to get to the point of understanding what's going on in the mind of a thief. And I also read several books that helped me get to that point.