As Martin Luther King said, "Passively to participate in an unjust system is to accept that system and to participate in its evil."

It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.

To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It's just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.

I try to avoid conflict. I don't want people to be unhappy.

I'm certainly curious about people. As a kid, I moved around a lot. I was raised in a lot of different places, and thanks to working in the movies, I've gotten to keep traveling. I've always been interested in other cultures and languages.

You can't really divorce yourself and your life from the world you live in.

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.