At the end of the day we're all spirits having a physical experience. That really comes from my relationship with Islam because it just makes me really conscious of my action.

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.

I had gone to - that was my second time going to the mosque. And then at that time we met [with my wife], she was Muslim and - but was at a point where - because her father is an imam and her mother, though, is a convert, but she was basically raised Muslim. And she was at that point where she was deciding or trying to come to terms with her own relationship with Islam and how to embrace that for herself. So I was sort of trying to come walk toward it.

The freedom that I wanted as a kid would - probably would not have been good for me and not in the way in which I wanted it.

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

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.

It was really a focus on how to in some ways keep moving in this direction towards something that allowed me to express myself in a way that sports didn't.