My ultimate life dream project is my kids. My family.

Everybody has a job to do. There are people in Iraq on both sides of this war who do what they do for religious reasons, and they feel with God on their side. Some people are good at annihilating people. Maybe that's their gift.

[My father] could see as far as he could see and my mother wanted us to go to college so it was a very real part of my life.

I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me - spiritually and financially.

My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back.

I even asked [Saniyya Sidney] why she wanted to be an actor and she said, "I'm serious about this. These other little kids they want to play, and I don't have time for that."

I remember my father telling me that just like Troy, he could get me in with the water department where he worked in New York. He talked about how he could get me on the job, and if I stayed 25 years, I could probably work my way up to be a supervisor and how it was a good union and all of the benefits and that I was going to make $20,000 in 50 years or whatever it was. He couldn't see that far.