Even though the topic [of slavery] itself is the big, screaming elephant in the room, we still get a chance to have fun and enjoy what is on the screen, and we have moments where we're actually happy.

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."

It's crazy how intelligent kids can be at a very young age and how they know what they know.

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

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.

Some of my job consists of me drafting and making technical drawings. So everything I did back then has materialized into something substantial for me today. Whatever kids are into, that might be their thing.

Now, I actually have to a degree, a responsibility to ensure that it doesn't happen again.' I felt pride. When you're up there [in the noose] it does give you pause but I'm no stranger to degradation and dehumanization. I felt a lot of pride to be a part of showing something like this because a lot of people don't know and haven't been exposed to these types of historical experiences until they see it depicted on our show [Underground].