The streets would have chewed me up and spit me out and I knew that, but I found my own ways and different knacks for getting in trouble and being reckless with my life. And I've overcome a lot of personal demons and to be alive is really my greatest achievement.

I had a very dear friend of mine, ton of potential, and he fell ill with bipolar disorder. And he was put in the penal system. And that was just adding fuel to the fire. He got worse. He came out and he's never been the same since. He can't seem to get his life back. And this is a man who could have had Hollywood in the palm of his hand. A lot of my inspiration and aspirations for wanting to be an actor, I owe to him. Between the disorder and him being put in jail, it just snuffed all of that away from him.

No one wakes up one day and decides they want to become a drug dealer or they want to be a stick-up kid. Those decisions are made after a series of events have happened in one's life.

Ending a television character that you've been, especially someone like Omar Little, it hurts. For me, it's a huge thing. You feel like a part of you is gone.

I'm good with all my roles, I've never had a bad role.

My dancing came about as a way to be cool, actually. I knew early on that I was not a street kid. I didn't have the moxie, what it took to run the streets with the dudes that I grew up wanting to emulate. But I had a huge need to be accepted, so I found that I could be the party king. I did drugs really well, and I partied really well.

I am the epitome of the underdog. By societies standards I should have been dead a long time ago, and I was nobody's gangster, I wasn't a thug, I wasn't selling drugs on the corner - I was scared of that.