If there's an interesting role that comes up as a great support role in a decent picture, then I'll do that.

What I remember from [the first meeting with Samuel L. Jackson] was that he was a friendly, animated kind of guy. His screen image is a hard boiled intimidating kind of character. That's what I remembered thinking, 'Boy, this guy seems like a normal guy.'

Just because people don't trust people doesn't mean [they] don't like them. There are lots of paranoid people in the world. You figure out their personalities and make them work.

I don't run around shooting people. Much. I only shoot two people a year. Maybe.

We both [me and Eugene Levy] come from the same place. Eugene did most of his work in SCTV and ensemble situations. I'd done all this theater work before I got into movies and ensemble situations. We both learned how to develop characters and interact with other people in a unique and economic sort of way.

I was Gator in Jungle Fever, and Chris Rock played Pookie, and those showed two very different dynamics of what crackheads were. Mine was more about the family relationships. So when people sat there and got that, they can sit there and say, "Oh, man, that's my friend." Or "That's my brother." Or cousin or somebody. They empathize, or they had something that they could latch onto, in that particular movie, of my story, and go with it.

When I saw the script [of The Man], I saw the character and knew I could do the character. It's a relationship movie, which is also what I love to do. That's what attracts me to projects.