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.

Even afterwards when you go through a scene and then step off, sometimes you need a minute to just decompress.

Democracy only works, as President [Barack] Obama spoke of in his farewell message, if it's driven by the people and the people stay active and vigilant and speak out and let their concerns be known.

I'd like to think that in any circumstance I'd say, "You know what? Screw this. Kill me. I'm done. I'm not going to grovel."

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.

They don't really focus on that history here in America. I remember growing up as a kid, history class was very washed-over. They didn't really get into the gritty bits of slavery. It's a very, very small section in the history books. It's not something they really touch on directly with American curriculums.

With any good projects, I feel like the off-screen chemistry factors on-screen. It's great when you don't have to force it, but when it's not there you better focus on getting there, because as we live with these characters we spend more time with one another than we do our families at home.