I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in the USA is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally.

I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.

I do think how two people dance with each other is indicative of how they feel about each other. It can tell a lot more than a verbal scene.

When you reflect upon the significance of Dr. King to this nation, it's criminal that he hasn't had a feature film that was centered around him until now. That, in and of itself, was emotional. But when you're doing scenes on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, with people still living in Selma and now in their 60s and 70s who had actually marched, who were there that original Bloody Sunday, that's humbling... that's deeply moving. You're no longer acting at that stage, you're just reacting, because it takes the filmmaking process to another dimension.

I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.

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.

We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.