Honestly, people told me to. It was weird, I graduated from school, I never thought I'd live in L.A. and I always wanted to be to New York. I assumed that would be my trajectory - that romantic ideal of moving there and doing plays Off-Broadway and being scrappy about it. Then we did a showcase in New York and a showcase in L.A., and for whatever reason the response that I generated in L.A. was significantly more enthusiastic.

Zoe Saldana is such an angel. She’s got such an openness and vulnerability on camera and yet such great strength. She can kick ass with the best of them, but then she can soften and open up in a way that is magnetizing whether you’re watching her on set or on screen – she’s got a real power to her. I love her; we’ve known each other for years and it’s great to come back to that kind of familiarity, especially when you’re working with such intimacy.

I think it's always good when you're able to, as an actor, allow your work to be some kind of a conduit for social discourse, and an examination of where we are, as a society.

When I got out of school, it used to be that it was theater actors that ended up doing film and television, and you had to come from the theater to be taken seriously in that world.

Maybe it's because it's connected to my childhood, or it's connected to the origins of what drove me creatively, but I feel like my life never makes more sense than when I'm in that process.

But when I found out that Jamey Rodemeyer had made an It Gets Better video only months before taking his own life, I felt indescribable despair.

I would say auditioning was my real training ground. The technical aspects - like hitting marks and pacing yourself and preparing and dealing with the downtime - the first recurring role I had on 24 was probably the way I learned that stuff.