I was too young to understand who Sam[uel L.] Jackson was or who Bruce Willis was, who Jeremy Irons was at the time. All I knew was that they were good to me then.

I remember my mom had a conversation with Sam Jackson about what she should do with our careers and what the next step should be; I was eight and my brother was nine. He said, "You need to get them on Broadway."

I'm always ready and willing to just keep pushing and working and going because it's in my spirit.

I was too young to live on campus. I just went back and forth on the bus. Eventually I got my own car and thought I was Mr. Man, so I started hot wheelin' it.

People talk about Jim Crow as if it's dead. Jim Crow isn't gone. It's adjusted. Look at the disproportionate sentences meted out to blacks caught up in the criminal justice system. There's a problem when people profit from putting and keeping African Americans in prison. We need to do a better job as a nation understanding the real values the country's built upon in terms of fairness, equality and equal opportunity.

Regardless of the project, whenever you're working on something, the best you can hope for is to be around good people.

Because sometimes listening to something will connect to a feeling, it will allow you to emote subconsciously, and you don't even understand why you're in it.