My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.

I'm half Jewish, I'm half black, I look in-between. I dress funny. I play all these different styles of music on one record. It's like, What is he doing?

I was an actor when I was a teenager and it could have been the direction that I headed in. But music and my relationship with music is quite deep, and it really is the nucleus of my creativity. So I gave up acting so I could pursue music fully, and I never thought about really going back. And then [director] Lee Daniels met me and wanted to work with me, and that's how it started.

If you go to Japan, they're still buying vinyl, and they want the education. They know who's playing on what tracks from the '60s and the '70s - who the guitar player is, who the drummer is, who the producer was, what studio it was recorded in. That's how I grew up listening to music. We bought albums. We read the liner notes. It was important to know the whole history behind it.

I had no idea 'The Hunger Games' was so big. I didn't even know the book. I had been living under my own rock.

I am trying to get closer to God.

I started out making furniture because I couldn't find certain things, and then I really got into it.