Hold tight to the mentality of being a student, meaning hold on to curiosity and approach life as a student.

Gay, straight - whatever - adolescents in high school and coming out of junior high, that's such a difficult, awkward period and kids can be so cruel and mean.

I grew up in church. My mom's a minister, and my grandmother was an ordained minister. I was always very mindful of the presence of a greater being I call God.

Anyone who grew up in the crack era - you know, I grew up in that era - knew that there were also people out - and there are still guys to this day that are out there, you know, obviously drug dealing - but those were the guys who had access and had money. And some of those guys felt responsible to create opportunity for other people and were also aware of the dangers of their work and often aren't really the ones that are encouraging kids to get into drug dealing.

When you graduate is when you start to find yourself looking at the information in the audition breakdown and it says tall black African - or African-American built such and such. And you start seeing these character descriptions and seeing that, oh, you're only going in for the ones that are described as your look.

As a kid, you're starting to grow up and want more freedoms. But if you have people who are absorbing and adopting religious principles and teachings, they start drawing these lines and creating confines in their life to live within certain lines.

I do think that there are people who are able to connect with and empathize with anyone who is going through something difficult, just naturally. I don't think it's a world of effort for everyone.