It's a misconception to believe that the resistance ended with the civil rights movement.

The death penalty is inhumane... whether that person is in a [jail] or it's bin Laden.

It's important for people of color to link up with issues around globalization, food security, health, the environment.

You have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality.

Some of these things I saw in foreign films - African films, Cuban films - long before I decided to really go on this course as an actor. I started to think about what values I saw in those films that I wanted to bring to my projects

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.

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