When you're playing this bad of a character, it's obviously not reality for someone who's not living that life.

Were there certain things that I didn't feel were dignified enough to make it into the movie? Yeah.

At the end of the day, my sole goal, when I go into any scene, is to try to be as honest as I possibly can, and then everything else is second. The most important thing for me is to just be as honest as I possibly can.

I'm always gonna be an actor, so I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do next. I would love to make a documentary again someday, but I need to take a break from it.

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.

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.

To make independent films, you can't think about them too much, ponder on them too much, get overwhelmed by the enormity of it.