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.

You know, Tupac is very near and dear to my heart. He started my career as an actor.

I don't believe in typecasting. Just because all my characters may come from the other side of the tracks doesn't mean they are all the same. You don't stereotype people and generalize people, everyone's different.

I haven't had a problem with being typecast, but if I was only getting one type of role, I wouldn't mind. What I'm worried about is not working.

Our criminal justice system has swallowed up too many people I love. I am proud to join the ACLU in the fight to make mass incarceration a thing of the past.

All my characters have playlists.

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.