Billy Dee Williams Quotes

There's always been a lot of misunderstanding about Lando's character. I used to pick up my daughter from elementary school and get into arguments with little children who would accuse me of betraying Han Solo.

- Billy Dee Williams

My idea is to paint paintings so that when you walk into a room, I'm pulling you in, or that makes you suddenly stop and wonder: 'What is this? There is something groovy, something else going on here.' Also, I want to give you what is obvious and what is not obvious to the eye.

- Billy Dee Williams

Actually, I believe in everything, including astrology and tarot cards. All of it is just another way for people to try and tighten the link to the spirits in our universe. I believe it exists for all people.

- Billy Dee Williams

If anything, I've seen myself as the full spectrum of colors, and to be faced with not being able to do something just because I'm of a particular race has been something that I've always found very difficult - even today.

- Billy Dee Williams

Right before 'Brian's Song' there was a period when I was very despondent, broke, depressed; my first marriage was on the rocks. The role of Gale Sayers had been cast with Lou Gossett, and then he hurt himself playing basketball. I was called in to read for the role. I was their last choice, and I knew it.

- Billy Dee Williams

I don't want to find myself ever locked into what people think I should think or do. In my art, and acting, I have a universal vision of things, an international vision. Bigger and broader and beyond. 'Bigger than life' is always on my mind.

- Billy Dee Williams

For myself, if I'm trying to obtain a certain longevity in my career, to establish myself as a certain kind of star, I don't want that black exploitation image.

- Billy Dee Williams

I loved Marlon Brando: my favorite actor.

- Billy Dee Williams

Power is a very peculiar thing. It's like the ego. The ego's only there to keep you above water. Once we realize something good about ourselves, we have a tendency to abuse the gift.

- Billy Dee Williams

As for Colt 45, I am very proud of my endorsement of the product, and it still 'Works every time.'

- Billy Dee Williams

Originally I planned on starting a teapot collection. I really like them.

- Billy Dee Williams

I was in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on a scholarship. I was - still am - an artist. They were looking for an actor for 'Take a Giant Step,' and a producer liked my look and asked if I could act. I said, 'Yep!' Then I got into acting more or less just to make money for paints and canvases.

- Billy Dee Williams

Jazz is very much a part of my life. I work with the Thelonious Monk Institute and do the artwork for their program every year.

- Billy Dee Williams

I go, and I do my work, and I try to do the best I can, and I collect my money, and I go home, and then I go on to the next thing. That's my attitude.

- Billy Dee Williams

Acting, I started when I was six and a half years-old, on Broadway with Kurt Weill.

- Billy Dee Williams

I'm always looking for good things to do.

- Billy Dee Williams

My mother's side of the family, they're from Montserrat in the Leeward Islands.

- Billy Dee Williams

No matter where I go, in this country or outside of this country, there are young people, and I'm always surprised that young people know about me and Colt 45.

- Billy Dee Williams

I don't know. You know, when I'm not acting, I'm not an actor. I'm just a person. That's how I go through life. I'd rather not - you know, like a lot of actors, you know, they spend their whole 24 hours a day being an actor.

- Billy Dee Williams

I tend to approach characters not based on ethnicity but on some unique individual qualities, and I've set my whole life that way. I don't want any sort of limitations imposed on my work. If you truly want to be a creative person, you can't limit yourself.

- Billy Dee Williams

I don't know why everybody thinks I'm smooth. I think I'm just a pretty silly person, really.

- Billy Dee Williams

Failure's not a bad thing. It builds character. It makes you stronger.

- Billy Dee Williams

I take very good care of myself, and I've still got a lot of things I need and want to do - and I am still cute. Retiring seems like such a remote thing to me. The whole idea of it.

- Billy Dee Williams

I think a lot of black filmmakers have done very well.

- Billy Dee Williams

I think I've been very fortunate, considering the obstacles that I had to deal with, you know, just being - by virtue of being a brown, lovely, brown-skinned man. But on the other hand, I've been able to make a good living, and I've been able to take care of my family, which is most important to me.

- Billy Dee Williams

It was a time after 'Lady Sings the Blues' and 'Mahogany' and all those romantic movies: I became this romantic figure on the street in a very special way.

- Billy Dee Williams

I am an artist no matter what I do. I live for creativity. I think everyone should. It is the antithesis of being destructive.

- Billy Dee Williams

The world moves fast, but change isn't always a good thing when you got it right the first time around.

- Billy Dee Williams

I did something that no brown-skinned man in the movie industry ever did. I made a brown-skinned man look very romantic - a matinee idol. If you think about it, what I introduced is historical because it had never happened before, and it hasn't happened since - not on that level.

- Billy Dee Williams

You are always going to have people criticizing, in one way or another, for their own personal reason.

- Billy Dee Williams

It's in our nature. We need to explore and find out what's going on outside of who we are.

- Billy Dee Williams

I tell my son Corey that the greatest teacher is the teacher who says, 'Don't follow me; follow yourself. Because within you there is that kingdom, that life, that force.'

- Billy Dee Williams

I don't want to sound too carried away, but from what I've seen, 'Bingo Long' is going to be a big one. A classic.

- Billy Dee Williams

Oh, I paint all the time.

- Billy Dee Williams

I think of film when I paint. Even the luminosity that I always keep working for is really about film. But my idea is not to paint paintings that will decorate somebody's house.

- Billy Dee Williams

I think I'm a good father. As a parent, you have the responsibility to create a foundation for your children so that they can meet all the challenges.

- Billy Dee Williams

I love the Mexican muralists - like Rivera, Orozco - and the music of Walter Benton. They gave you a sense that reality was much more than life.

- Billy Dee Williams

The only thing that said 'Lando Calrissian' was ethnic was his looks.

- Billy Dee Williams

I always admired my father because he was a man that never put on any airs, you know. And I always tried to be that kind of person.

- Billy Dee Williams

Sometimes a true original doesn't need to change a thing.

- Billy Dee Williams