Berlin is liberation. Architecture, man!

I hated school right away. Religion had a lot to do with it because I felt like everybody was always lying to me.

I went to business school but left after four months because I just didn't want to be a puppet of society, stuck in an office, craving some sunlight.

We all have our moments. But you can switch it around. Then you've got the activist type who bases their decisions in the development of a character on what it symbolizes to society - what the ethical code is.

I used to go over to my friend's house and we'd watch VCR tapes, three of them a day, and I was like, "I could come up with better stories than this." And I've wanted to write films ever since.

I'm like, "Well, damn, that means that I have to carry a flag." I don't have the freedom to just do anything, because I have the political weight of having this last name and my heritage. It's not like I've transcended, Will Smith-style. It takes a lot to pull that off, to cross over, and transcend.

The way I survived growing up in Jersey City was by being funny. It wasn't by being tough. Nobody thought of me as a tough kid, except for the kids I beat up.