I don't cook gumbo, but I just know it's a lot of good ingredients in it. And, with a movie, you got to have all those ingredients.

You learn that Hollywood has its own rules, sometimes. And it's tricky, and sometimes you can't see what's coming around the corner.

I love performing. I'll never get that out of me.

I don't listen to nothing while I'm in the studio, because I don't want to be influenced by anybody else.

Sometimes you got to start somewhere. And it's cool, as long as where you start is not where you plan on finishing.

As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.

I always tell people that if you gave me a pen and a piece of paper when I was a teenager and said, "Write out how you'd like your career to go," I would have probably short changed myself compared to what it's been for real. I'm just extremely excited about what I've accomplished.