I'm looking for diversity, all my characters may or may not be on the wrong side of the tracks. It doesn't mean that they're all the same.

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.

For me, my past characters been hard, the way they died, being murdered, the sadness that goes around, the death. It's a very hard thing to do.

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.

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.

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.

My job is to bring to life the character, not to put the words on the paper.