Sometimes when you grieve, you grieve at a time where you don't really expect it. You might hear a song or you might smell something or see something that might trigger something, and all of a sudden you get hit with this rush of emotion.

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.

To the trolls on the internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends' friends and who they're interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It's okay to like it.

ESPN Zone was probably the coolest thing I could do [making "Hardball"]. But Navy Pier was the other thing. I'd take my bicycle and ride down to Navy Pier and just hang out. Try to get a phone number or something. That was my thing.

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.

The fact that there aren't an abundance of African-American males that are getting lead roles [and] that are getting roles that have prominence on the big screen. [It's] the same thing from behind the camera; maybe even worse. Coming up, when you're black and you want to direct somebody says, "Oh, you're Spike Lee" or "You're John Singleton."

I'm extremely blessed. There's a lot of people trying to exactly what I'm doing, but I'm a part of that 9.1 percent that's actually having their dream come true. I just don't take that for granted.