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.

When we kind of get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us all different, I think there's two ways of seeing that. There's an opportunity to see the texture of that person, the characteristics that make them unique. And then there's an opportunity to go to war about it and to say that that person is different from me and I don't like you, so let's battle.

[Crack epidemic] definitely has impacted folks in my family, most definitely. I think that's true for most, if not all people, regardless of color, that grew up in and around areas that were closer to the nucleus of the crack epidemic.If you look at Baltimore or D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, like, Los Angeles.

Isaiah the prophet, Isaiah's second son was - his symbolic name was Mahershalalhashbaz. And Isaiah was - the Prophet Isaiah was instructed to write the name in all capital letters as a prophecy. And it means hasten to the spoils, speedy as the prey.

I played all four years [at St. Mary's College] with - at a certain point, basketball became the thing I was doing most, but it was really in my periphery.

I never wanted to accept that. And so I have always fought against that in some way, shape or form and had - I've had people who have supported trying to get me in for things that were beyond the character description.

I got into [acting] so late because of sports. And then when I was in grad school, I sort of got lulled into basically forgetting I was black, in - meaning that everyone you play at a conservatory, 95 percent of the characters are non-black.