Best Sidney Poitier Quotes & Sayings

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier. — Chadwick Boseman

Our fellow Negro citizens could be summed up in something Tessie said after watching Sidney Poitier's performance in To Sir with Love, which opened a month before the riots. She said, You see, they can speak perfectly normal if they want. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Sidney Poitier and Sidney Lumet were instrumental in helping me get started as the first black composer to get name credit for movie scores. — Quincy Jones

Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers. I'm just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, 'Okay, I'll do that.' — James Earl Jones

I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them. — Bernie Mac

Every film by Will Smith, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Ruby Dee, Don Cheadle will have great acting and carry good messages in the film. The films starring those actors are the films I tell young people to watch for good acting and to view for quality movies. — Brian J. White

When I was growing up, I didn't see me in the movies except in certain lesser roles. If it wasn't funny, I wasn't there. Then Sidney Poitier came along, and he wasn't funny. He was just good. There's me. So that was my pattern. — Morgan Freeman

Sidney Poitier, who is class personified, said: 'Lou, you're a leading man because you're a good actor.' Brought tears to my eyes. — Lou Diamond Phillips

Sidney Poitier became a star in part by helping black and white Americans negotiate their new relationship in the post-Civil Rights era. — Wesley Morris

The trailblazers are my role models in this industry: Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, James Earl Jones, and Billy Dee Williams. I keep their pictures in my trailer and try to measure to their standards every time I act. — Brian J. White

When you act a scene with Sidney Poitier, he listens intently to every word you say. You can feel your words hit him. He makes the scene utterly real. — Judy Geeson

Usually, you get to interview that one girl who plays the sister on some Disney show - you interview that girl a lot - but sometimes, every once in a while, you get to interview a legend. I have interviewed some amazingly iconic people, including Michelle Obama, Oprah, Sidney Poitier and Judy Dench. These people are legit icons. — Ross Mathews

My first love was acting. I went to Sidney Poitier films as a kid. I sat in the theater and dreamed of being an actor. — Carl Weathers

I was playing this horrible part. I didn't didn't want to play it because the character was an awful racist. But I'm glad I did it because I met Sidney Poitier. — Richard Widmark

I will say this: the first film that I was on was 'In the Heat of the Night', that Norman Jewison directed with Sidney Poitier. I'm on the set, and I'm totally taking it for granted. Everyone is working for everyone else and pulling for the very best, and it makes everyone better because you feel that effort and concern and appreciation. — Scott Wilson

A Murphy [Eddie Murphy] movie is like a Sidney Poitier comedy - he's that intensely good ... He revolutionized acting. He's literally black Brando. Before Eddie Murphy, there were two schools of acting for a black actor: Either you played it LIKE THIS or youplayeditlahkdis. He was the first black guy in a movie to talk like I am talking right now. That did not exist for black actors before him. — Scott Raab