If you're a boxer, you want to get the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali type. When you're acting, you want to get in with Meryl Streep, and that's what I did.

Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.

I don't think most people understand acting, even the people who call themselves savvy, even actors.

Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.

I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color.

I'm very committed to its educational institutions, including my alma mater Central Falls High School's drama program, because I know that's what got me my start. I do everything I can to keep it alive since it made me feel like I had something to give to the world. I also support the Segue Institute for Learning, a charter school in Central Falls run by a friend of mine that my niece attends. I'm committed to that because of its proven results. They have the highest math scores of any charter school in Rhode Island.

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can't seem to get there no how. I can't seem to get over that line.