If you've ever felt oppressed on any level, there's something from 'The Wire' that you can take and identify with.

For me, the best experience is to get to watch all of these different actors that come to the different seasons and bring these A-game performances. I'm just like, "Wow, can you do that again, so that I can take notes? How did you do that?!" That's the greatest joy, in doing a show like 'Hap and Leonard: Mucho Mojo'. I get to watch all of these thespians come rip it a new asshole.

You know, my childhood was pretty colorful; I like to use the word turbulent.

My childhood was pretty colorful; I like to use the word turbulent. But it was a great time to grow up, the '70s and '80s in Brooklyn, East Flatbush. It was culturally diverse: You had Italian culture, American culture, the Caribbean West Indian culture, the Hasidic Jewish culture. Everything was kind of like right there in your face. A lot of violence, you know, especially toward the '80s the neighborhood got really violent, but it made me who I am, it made me strong.

I grew in a community where I saw the process of how one becomes a drug dealer or a gang banger or a stick-up kid. There's a series of events that happen. People don't just wake up and decide they wanna be that.

At the core of every person or belief, there's a pain and a thorn. There's always something, whether it's a physical thing, a health thing, or an I wish I had someone or something in my life thing. We all know some level of pain, so I like to see the ugliness of characters. It's a side that we show, only when we strip down in the bathroom mirror.

I understand pain very well, so I look for that in a role. If the characters are well-written, don't tell nobody, but I'll do the damn thing for free. I'm serious. It's the writing. I love beautifully flawed characters.