Three Bermudian high schoolboys met Hollywood star Danny Glover at a character-building programme held at a prestigious Ivy League university.

Trey Vance, Nkosi Edwards and Terique Smith said that they met Mr Glover, also active in civil rights and politics, when the star of the smash hit Lethal Weapon movies was invited to be a guest speaker at the From the Fire: Leadership Academy for Young Men.

The trio said they took pictures of themselves with Mr Glover and spoke to him about their lives.

Terique, a Berkeley Institute pupil, said: “He was there to explain what he’s been through and what the programme does.

“He was really friendly. He told me to be focused and stay on the straight path.”

Mr Glover was one of several celebrities, including actor Delroy Lindo, who had major roles in The Cider House Rules and Heist and won praise for his work with director Spike Lee in Clockers, Crooklyn and Malcolm X, who spoke at the event, held in July and August.

From the Fire and its sister project At The Well: Young Women’s Leadership Academy were designed to help black youngsters from around the world learn life skills and social awareness.

Trey and Terique, 15, and Nkosi, 17, were the first Bermudian youngsters to take part in the programme.

The boys said that the two-week event kept them on a strict routine of physical activity, academic study and character building exercises.

They added that they learnt qualities such as teamwork, discipline and critical thinking to prepare them for university and adulthood.

Nkosi, a CedarBridge Academy pupil, said that his classes pushed him to plan further ahead.

He explained: “I was planning to go to Bermuda College and just go with the flow from there.

“But later on I realised that I can’t just sit here and not prepare for the next step of my life.

“Now I’m trying to make special connections to get to the jobs that I want to take.”

Trey said that the programme helped him stay focused and work harder.

He explained: “I didn’t always do my work as well as I could, but at Leadership Academy if your work wasn’t good they’d make you do it again.”

He added: “They could make you stay up all night doing it, so I worked harder so I could go to bed.”

Terique said that the programme inspired him to take responsibility.

He explained: “For me, there was an excuse for everything — when we worked out I would stop early and say ‘I have asthma’ or something.

“But then our instructors told the others that they couldn’t stop until we joined.”

Terique added that these lessons also taught him about brotherhood and the importance of teamwork.

He said that he put this lesson into practice when he thought an instructor had shown favouritism.

Terique explained: “The boys would do work all throughout one professor’s class, but we saw on a girl’s Snapchat that he’s doing the Electric Slide with the girls in class.

“The next time we went to class we were completely silent and when he asked what was wrong we told him that we didn’t appreciate how he treated us differently.

He added: “He apologised and did the dance with us to show that he cared. At that time it was like we were one unit.”

Marjorie Caines and Kalreta Conyers-Steede, who introduced the boys to the programme, praised them for their commitment.