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

I got into [acting] so late because of sports. And then when I was in grad school, I sort of got lulled into basically forgetting I was black, in - meaning that everyone you play at a conservatory, 95 percent of the characters are non-black.

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

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.

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 do think that there are people who are able to connect with and empathize with anyone who is going through something difficult, just naturally. I don't think it's a world of effort for everyone.

In my time at St. Mary's College, drifting out of sports because it was something that began to feel really finite. And I could see that I didn't have the passion to sustain a career in sports.