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.

I'm stubborn. I'm hardheaded. I don't do what I don't want to do.

I wanted to express myself. I wanted to be creative and I didn't want to worry about someone bossing me around in the process. You have to struggle no matter where you are to get to where you're going, so I'm like, working it honey!

I already knew, from church, that this place was raped and pillaged by Spaniards and the Pilgrims. "Don't sit here and try to tell me that they broke bread together, brother.

I use to watch like maybe three or four movies, five days out of the week. I was a movie buff, but I really didn't know what it was like behind the scenes, or the whole political process of it.

I'd done two years' worth of extra work, and all my friends who I would go on auditions with went to school for acting. These were kids who knew when they were 14 years old that this was what they wanted to do with their lives, and they prepared for it, and they're getting canned at every audition.

Going to car racing school was phenomenal.