Martin Luther King was a voice to the voiceless, and he did that tirelessly, and his faith was the engine to that. But he was just a human being, at the end of the day.

My parents are very hard working people who did everything they could for their children. I have two brothers and they worked dog hard to give us an education and provide us with the most comfortable life possible. My dad provided for his family daily. So, yes, that is definitely in my DNA.

There is still a fundamental misunderstanding, when it comes to observing that when someone is black and someone is white, then that difference is enough to warrant the idea that they shouldn't be together. We are so much more alike in nature than we are different, and my ambition with the roles I choose to do is to break down that prejudice, by showing how much I - as a man - am just a man.

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 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.

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.

Whether we like to admit it or not, as artists, we do project our own worldview on to what we do.