Being a part of independent-film world, the independent-film community, that's what you do. You support each other. If someone's doing a movie and you trust them, you roll the dice. Sometimes it's gonna be good, sometimes it's gonna be something that's like, "Oh I don't know what the hell that is." But I've been more fortunate than not to have it work well.

I see these other actors come up with this tough-guy personas and now when they're on talk shows they're all... But that's not really the way they are. I probably could have used a little bit of that. At one point I was labeled "The King Of Dumb White Guys." I was offended by that when I was younger, but I understand what that's from, so I was like, "Only a genius can play a fool." But I'm very aware of that, and I'll play into it and use it however I need to use it.

I love doing things that are titillating. I think race can be very funny, and I think I'm very comfortable discussing it and bringing it up.

A Tribe Called Quest music was so inclusive, so conscious, it brought such a community together.

I'm not going to try and change how people perceive me. I think it's important to be a contradiction. People are contradictions; everyone has contradictions. So I don't expect anyone to look at me differently.

Each environment is different, each job is different, and each realm of creativity that they give you is different. You try to do the best you can and put as much time into it as you can, but different jobs have different circumstances come about.

Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous.