I've personally been on the outside sometimes. But I was - I personally was never persecuted especially in the way in which sharing my own experiences.

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

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.

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.

So many Muslims would tell you that they felt like that you had to - you fold it into yourself because people were looking at you and recognizing you as being the culprit even though, look, I'm American. I don't believe that the teachings of Islam justified those actions.

I grew up in church. My mom's a minister, and my grandmother was an ordained minister. I was always very mindful of the presence of a greater being I call God.

I'm not much of cook, but I cook a mean bowl of oatmeal.