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.

I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory.

Notes are tricky in an audition, because I find, more often than not, my instinct is right.

I graduated in '94 from Yale and New York Undercover was my first gig on TV. I was really all over the place with roles, which is what I wanted to do.

You don't see a lot of black rock stars. The music industry tends to be segregated stylistically. It's hard for a black artist to cross over to rock music.

I'm an artist at heart.

Most of the characters I'd played were so different from me, so far from me that I had to transform.