Having a child is the polar opposite experience of the awards season experience. The awards-season experience requires you to be out in the community, in the heart of the community, at the nucleus of the film community in a really committed way for about a six-month period of time. Having a child requires you to nest, to be in your home, and to create and make your home and environment that is one that is potentially very welcoming and nurturing for a child.

[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.

Because on that watch list, they would be like, yeah, your name - they told me like, yeah, your name matches the name of a terrorist or someone that they're watching. I was just like, what terrorist is running around with a Hebrew first name and a Muslim - Arabic last - I'm like, who's that guy?

This is 2003, 2004. And then I started - after the Patriot Act, I would always get my financial packages in the mail and they would just be opened. And it was like, what is going on here?

I was fortunately able to avoid getting into any trouble with police. There was - I remember I was 12, and I did something really (laughter) - a couple of friends, Cinco de Mayo - we were off school, and we saw some people looking like they were having a party. And we had a little bit too much time on our hands, and so we figured, as kids, a great idea would be to throw some things over the fence and hit all these people with stuff, like eggs and everything.

My father had a lot to do with me thinking about acting, though he never saw me act. He passed away probably - he passed away as I was doing my first play, but I just think being exposed to it and being around it. It wasn't something that I ever thought I couldn't do because I grew up around it.

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.