Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

You know if we were to look back and how we were in 1955 living in Jim Crow, living in segregation, living in segregated schools, it's hard to believe that it was America, but it really was.

I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

You've heard that old expression from Shakespeare, 'Just speak the speech'? The words themselves will take you to the reality of the character. And so this led me to interview people.

Art simply can’t be stopped.