I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role that black men should play in their lives with their children and in their lives with their women.

When I was young, and I'd get A's, I'd get this good feeling of all the things that I could be. And then I'd never became any of them.

I first wanted to be a comedian when I was six or seven and my dad showed me Laurel and Hardy's "Perfect Day" on tv.

On learning to swim: I'm too big to have some woman hold my stomach and say 'Now kick your feet.'

You don’t try to build a wall, you don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there… You say ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.’ And you do that every single day and soon you have a wall.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

Make a choice of what you want, who you want to be and how you're going to do it. The universe will get out of your way.