I know there were periods of times where I didn't feel understood, and there were very few people around me that I felt like they really got me. There was one person who was sort of the one in my life that really got me.In general, I felt a little bit on the outside and not totally included. There was a period of time when we were moving around a lot. So I couldn't really hold on to a certain set of friends. And so that was a little bit difficult.

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.

I wanted to get that scholarship to - a division one scholarship and play ball and go to school for free. And that, to me, was - I was always about getting to that next step. If I could get to that next place, then I could figure out essentially what to do with being in that space and how to manage my time and handle those - handle all the benefits of being in that space in a way that would get me to the next place.

My connection to music is so strong. I cling to it. I vibe out to it. I release stress to it. Music is really always close to me. It's really present in my work in terms of how I relate to characters is through rhythm and sound, even in their speech.

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.

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.

When it finally came my way and doors opened up for me to do it and to be on stage, it felt like a natural thing to try out. And it just so happened to speak to me. I really couldn't do what I needed to do in the most fulfilling way in Hayward, Calif., or in the Bay Area, that it required me to go off to NYU.