If you're going to come at me, come at me respectfully, and I will respond respectfully.

I started to realize, a lot of times if you go into your memory, your sense memory, you know more than you think you do, from having watched and listened.

Growing up, I never imagined I would be an actor.

A very odd thing happened to my career when I got The Wire. My career was pretty much a steady climb; I didn't really flatline much. When I did The Wire, that's when I thought all the doors would open, but that's when things flatlined. I had a really hard time just getting seen for film, which was the next step.

When you're in a high-stress situation, dynamics between people can change.

'The Wire' really drew on a lot of real-life situations and real-life organizations - it created fiction to make a social statement about reality.

I did an Off-Broadway show that was a comedy written by Ann Meara. We were like a family, and we did that show for a year. On Oz, I did feel like the cast members were friends and there was a lot of bonding. That said, there was a lot of testosterone. Once again, it was full of really intense theater actors with this writing that was really intricate and subtle.