You start at a young age, going on auditions, and you think you did a good job and expect to get that role, and you don't, and it's a letdown, a disappointment. So you tell yourself to just do the work and disconnect, because you have no control over the outcome.

As an actor, you never want to feel like a tool. You never want to feel like, "Hey, just come here, say this, stop here, look this way," and that's it. You want to have a little input.

Watching a really good movie excites me, because it makes we want to get up off the couch and go shoot something and act in a scene. And music excites me because it puts me in a mind state, whatever that may be.

When I hear people comparing Mike's [Jordan] work to Denzel [Washington] I think it's amazing.. Because Denzel is such an amazing, textured actor. And I think that that comes with Mike too. I'm not thinking about how they look, though; I'm thinking about what they're able to accomplish.

Chicago PD has a rule that if you work in Chicago you have to live in Chicago. Some areas don't have that rule.So oftentimes you get people from different environments that get thrown into environments with people that they never spent time with before in they life. On a daily basis or in their personal life. The only access they had to these type of people was through the media.

What I was interested in [Fruitvale Station ] was one guy and his life and how that related to all of our lives and the fact that it ended unnecessarily and what the fallout from that was.

As I grow and get older, mature a bit, and work on my big boy voice a little bit, I definitely want to direct.