I just owe it to myself, to God and to everybody who supports me and people who don't even know me yet, to just be fully intentional and authentically real with everything I do, say and create.

Working with Ava [ DuVernay] and Oprah [Winfrey], they're just so intimate. I feel like we're really family at this point.

As a young, Black man, I absolutely feel responsible.

As a kid, there [on TV] were things I wasn't aware of - insecurities while transition from teen to adult. When I was around 17 and 18, I started seeing the benefits of this world.

Ralph Angel, for me, was about getting in touch with the similarities between the characters. I felt like he was a human being that I knew and [somebody] that I've been and am currently still exploring.

I feel responsible to know what I'm talking about and to actually express myself the way I choose. We have to put those messages on a global platform period. That, to me, is inspiring.

Everyone has a platform, so if we could just use that and combine what we have and know -we talk about it in private - we might as well talk about it [publicly] together.