I've been fortunate, I guess: I've gotten to play a lot of very diverse roles for quite a long time. But in the beginning, I was thinking, 'I'm not gonna do certain characters. I will be willing to say no and live on a couch.' And I was really happy.

On the whole, I now see my work as being an expression of my spiritual life and, because I look at it that way, I have a different centre. I go through the stress and pressure, but I think I'm lucky because I come from a different source point.

My wife is completely different from me: she's good with everyone, whereas I'm good at directed conversation when I have a purpose for it, like now. If everyone's sitting around being social, I'm not great.

My wife, Keisha, came home once, and I had these violinists playing for her, and I'd prepared dinner for her, and I write poems. She's pretty amazing, so I like to celebrate that. She's really taught me how to celebrate life; that's something I've learned.

It's tough when you have to be away. But I'm probably at home more than my dad was because he was working two or three jobs sometimes.

To try and act like we haven't had great progress is not true. Obama didn't fail - he changed the psyche of the nation and, in some ways, the world.

I'm inspired to work with good actors, period. I want to work with the best anytime because I think they'll make me better.

Until film is just as easily accessible as a pen or pencil, then it's not completely an art form. In painting, you can just pick up a piece of chalk, a stick, or whatever. In sculpture, you can get a rock. Writing, you just need a pencil and paper. Film has been a very elitist medium. It costs so much money.

I've had many incidents in my life of racism. I've been thrown on the ground. I've been frisked. I've been arrested so many times I couldn't tell you. I have no need to talk about it.

Good science fiction is always based in contemporary truths.