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.

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.

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.

There was things just like not being able to date or - I'm talking like 15, 16 - like just certain things that my friends started to do. Like, they started to get phone calls from girls or like, you know, go and hang out 10, 11 at night, kind of going to the movies. There were just certain things that - it's not that I couldn't do all of those things. It's just that every choice was really deliberate and conscious and thought out and sort of balanced against the religion in a way where I felt - I wasn't necessarily trying to convert at 12 like [my mother] was.

I had read some books on the Baha'i Faith. I had read - I was looking into Buddhism and trying to understand sort of the agnostic approach, so there was just a bunch of stuff I was just looking at.

I think what I've learned from working on "Moonlight" is we see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves.

I always hope to be a better person tomorrow than today.