I like to play complex characters and the duality, and trying to reach for the light, it's more interesting really. I've gotten to play so many types of guys and I just try to find the humanity in each one of them the best I can.

The true wealth of a community is measured by how carefully it listens to its women and how sincerely it values their wisdom. Empowering women empowers us all.

Stereotypes do exist, but we have to walk through them.

On the very last day of shooting [of The Last King of Scotlang], I remember wanting to get the [Idi Amin] character out of me right away, as much as I could. You literally take a bath to wash him off you. Luckily, I went into another part not so long afterwards, so I was kind of able to push it away a little bit. But speech patterns, and little sounds, particularly colloquial things, like the way you ask questions or might respond, were sticking with me, probably because I'd worked so hard to make it a part of my everyday way of expressing myself.

I started by studying Kiswahili to learn the dialect. Then, I studied tapes, documentaries, footage, and audio cassettes of Idi Amin's speeches. And I met with his brothers, his sisters, his ministers, his generals' all kinds of people, in order to try to understand him.

It is possible for a kid from east Texas, raised in south central LA and Carson, who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and to have them happen.

I try to be like a forest: revitalizing and constantly growing.