I think what a lot of people don't realize is how much being the leader of this movement weighed upon him. After all, he [Dr. Martin Luter King] was only 39 years-old when he was assassinated, and only 36 during the Selma campaign. He always seemed older than he actually was, and I believe part of that had to do with just how much life he had to live in order to lead this movement.

I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.

Considering how pervasive interracial marriage is, certainly in American society, it is rare we get to see it depicted on film.

I'm one of those actors who says, "Point me toward the work that matters to me and I don't care where you're putting it. Television show. Movie. Projected on the back of someone's garage." If that's where the work is that's exciting to me and moving, I want to be there.

People have compact to go beyond our own culture and upbringing to a degree that I think we don't acknowledge enough really.

I think the notion that we are different just because of skin color, and that we should be kept apart or kept from interbreeding, is very hurtful.

I never, ever do a film and just kind of move on. I think of them as children of mine, and you don't give birth to a baby and just leave it on someone else's doorstep. You see it all the way through college.