I'm lucky enough that directors sometimes seek me out for little projects that people don't even know about, that just surface later on.

The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly unless you have the right set of values and understand why you're doing it. Luckily, I was raised by people who'd already gotten to that point, and seen all the yuck stuff - which is probably why they originally didn't want me to act.

It's always been a desire of mine to work with my parents, so Wild at Heart was a wish come true. The first day we did a scene together I came down the stairs and my mom pointed that finger at me: "Don't you dare talk to that boy again!" You know, I've seen that finger for 23 years. And I started laughing, she started laughing, then the whole crew broke up - in that moment, they all knew that she and I had been there before.

That's life - to turn each other on, to feel good, to feel in love.

Virginia Mayo had kind of a small role in The Best Years of Our Lives, but you got the whole character in one scene. Where are those parts? I was talking to somebody about great actors: Morgan Freeman's name came up, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Washington. And I realized, there're no black actresses. Where's there a black actress who's been extremely successful in the past 10 years?

It would be great to make a movie that had the style of a great '30's film.