My strangest auditioning experience was when I was reading for a TV show, and right when I started the audition, the casting director left the room and yelled at me from the hallway to keep reading.

I don't even know if people are familiar with my name as an actor. It's not as if I ever was an über-famous actor.

Idealism loses to pragmatism when it comes to winning elections.

I think there's a lot of shame in American race relations. There's a lot of suppressed guilt that lashes itself out still. I see that all the time, and whereas opposed to sort of trying to address the issue in an up-front way, they're attacking and thus perpetuating the problem thinking that they're being sophisticated and post-racial, when, in fact, they're being completely regressive.

Certainly, for me, and it's gone this way on every project I've worked on, the "writing" never ends until you're done with the movie.

I read an interview with Aaron Sorkin and he said he plays every part when he's writing. I thought, "Oh, I do that too! I'm doing okay."

I find that when people get a script, they know within five pages if the writer can write. Once you're five pages in, it doesn't matter whose name is on the cover, you're not even thinking about it.