It's easy to spend - especially in this day and age - to spend your time not being in the present. It's very easy to be way ahead. What's tomorrow and the day after that?

I think in the end there is one ultimate goal with all my careers, and that is, as a performing artist, you want to explore the deepest, most truthful way to express a point of view, or whatever the character is thinking, or whatever emotion you're trying to convey. I think with the different media it's just about what muscles you use to express that.

Theater doesn't bring money in general. That's not why you do it. If you go into theater for money then you've really gone into the wrong business.

...and if you hear something you know, please sing along. No wait - I take that back - you can't sing along - this is about me now - this is my show.

Pedigree matters: if you break your shoulder trying to open a door, it's much harder to play the game once you get in the room.

I'm addicted to those moments when you're on stage and the audience is so quiet you could hear a pin drop and you realize that you're in communion. That's an incredible experience. That's a cosmic experience, as far as I'm concerned, without getting way out there.

The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience's ears. It's not the typical Southern dialect that we're used to.