As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think it's very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.

What we have as artists is the immortalization opportunity that others don't have, because our work is lasting; it's there forever to view.

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

I took to writing as my medicine to help me stay afloat in acting career journey. I wrote about me breaking hearts, and my heart being broken. I wrote about my views whether they were liberal or conservative. I wrote about everything. I wrote about my life. When I did not have paper coming in as green backs, I'd use random pieces of paper for stories. It was like, I got no money, but I have paper to write. So I wrote.

You know, I think anybody who has been in relationships has access to heartbreak - I don't think we have to go far to find it, whether we inflicted the heartbreak or whether we were the recipient of it.

Poetry has, in a way, been my bridge to my acting career.

The way the recession has affected Hollywood, a lot of actors that had robust opportunities before in film no longer have such plum options, so cable has done a good job of becoming a happy medium for artists deemed film actors.