I can say with full sincerity that I am happy. I'm happy because I'm doing what I love and I'm not selling out. And I can sleep at night because I'm at peace with it.

I try to carve my own way so the actors who come after me will say, "I want to do it like Columbus did it."

With films, you completely immerse yourself in a character, get into who they are, live it and then release it.

You stay with the foundation and then you just try different things because you don't know how the director will cut it and you want to give him, what will work, and you want to give him some options, give yourself some options, discover some things when you start to play. That's what we do; we get paid to play.

[Show] business is tough. You never know who or what's real. It's tough when you get in this business, if you have no grounded foundation other than Hollywood, because this business isn't real. We're getting paid to do what we love, but it isn't real.

I want to play Martin Luther King. I want to tell the real story, his demons, his struggles as a man, not just as a hero but fallible, I want to show that side.

As we speak, that is what we are doing. Projects that come to you are not written for you. We have to take a lesson from Will Smith, who develops projects he can shine in. We're trying to develop things from the ground up.