I think having good family and friends really helps to ground you.

I'm trying to steal from everybody. So yeah, there's cats that I'm personally affiliated with - Carl Franklin, Paul Thomas Anderson - and others that I don't know personally but their work I'm a big admirer of, like Martin Scorsese. But I'm hoping to come up with a language that is mine, that's specific to my take on this material.

President Obama inherited a broken country mired in two wars, a financial crisis, a mortgage mess and more than we all probably even know about and has in my opinion brought us back from the brink. But I still see my friends in no better shape and the gap widening.

It is the least represented among us who will be the most affected first. We have a moral responsibility to protect them.

Is there a way to discuss climate change without politics or religion getting in the way?

I want to see somebody go to jail over the financial crisis and not just black, brown and poor whites over humbles and minor drug beefs.

It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.