Lethal Weapon 2 used the platform to talk about the apartheid system. That was a very important moment for us.

Every day of my life I walk with the idea I am black no matter how successful I am.

My theatrical background was in the great work of the South African playwright Athol Fugard.

There is a lack of leadership outside the Beltway, outside of politics.

The civil rights movement didn't deal with the issue of political disenfranchisement in the Northern cities. It didn't deal with the issues that were happening in places like Detroit, where there was a deep process of deindustrialization going on. So you have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality. All these things gave rise to the black power movement. The black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.

We live in a climate of fear, and because of this whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion.

Whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion. Whether it's the consumption of entertainment or the consumption around buying things, we're so caught up with our appetites that we don't have a clear distinction about what we need and what we just want. Plus, the decline of trade unions is a factor. When you have powerful unions, you have a working class that is politicized.