When you're playing Shakespeare, it forces you to think and feel and speak all at the same time, which really is what acting is. It expands your imagination and expands your size of thinking.

Barry Jenkins just cast the right people and framed things the right way.

People do come up to me quite a lot. I get called all of it. I rarely get called my name; it's usually "Hey, Dr. Edwards!" or "Algernon." The most common thing is, "You're the black doctor on that show!" I'll take any of it, because I've definitely been called much worse things.

All the craft skills that I have, I feel like I developed and honed in drama school. It's the most important thing for me.

I think working on Shakespeare was a big part of my time at drama school. I'm so glad that I got to know Shakespeare and got a chance to play great parts in Shakespeare, because it really teaches you - or taught me, anyway - everything.

The policies enacted during segregation are still being felt in Birmingham.

Working on Shakespeare and learning about Shakespeare was the big takeaway for me.