There'll be moments when I'm out in the prison yard, chatting with the cast and the crew, getting ready to shoot a scene. And then I'll remember if I were actually an inmate, I'd only be out there an hour. The other 23 hours of the day, I'd be in my cell. It's kind of a downer.

My encounters with racism are sort of second-hand situations where I might be standing around with a group of white friends and someone makes a comment that they wouldn't make at my family reunion.

My father is black and my mother is white. Therefore, I could answer to either, which kind of makes me a racial Lone Ranger, caught between two communities.

It's very much a back and forth conversation between the fans and the writers, between the writers and the powers that be. Their opinions, especially when expressed online or via correspondence, are important and are taken into consideration.

I have my own personal wish list.

You're confronted with the quandary: do I grind things to a halt? Ideally you would, but I have better things to do than educate people.

I spend my weekends sleeping and watching DVDs, and eating at restaurants within a 2-block radius of my apartment.