“I’m an artist. Artists don’t need permission to work. Regardless of whether I’m acting or not, I write. I write when I’m tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.”

For all the claims that we now live in a society free of racism, the tragedies that presently overwhelm us are a stiff dose of reality.

I am not a huge fan of surprises.

FBF to one of the most beautiful locations I’ve ever shot at.

Rise up. Register. Let your voice be heard.

I can definitely dance, but pedestrian dancing.

I’m not so keen on letting my car drive itself.

I don’t have a smart house. My house is very dumb.

Each movie you do about a real person is like a painting, and you choose certain things in the painting that you want to pull out and you want to show.

I’d taken, like, maybe some African dance classes a couple of times, but I wasn’t a musical theater person at all.

I can’t even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.

I don’t read reviews, but I do get feedback from my peers and people I know, like other actors and directors and producers.

I think there’s a difference between a working actor, a movie star and a celebrity. They’re all three different things.

Sometimes when you’re acting, you only need a little bit of something to sort of channel or, you know, transport into a place.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor’s process.

I might have had too many friends in my twenties.

I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York, and I didn’t have money to pay my rent.

It’s bad writing, however naturalistic it’s written, that’s where you have to do your best acting.

Acting for me was an escape and it wasn’t until Smoke Signals that made me realize that acting is a personal development and challenge to grow.

Acting had always been the social scene I’d fallen into. It was sort of a merry band of band geeks and theater nerds.

Ever since I started acting, I’ve always spoken to our people about identity. I’ve spoken to kids, telling them: “Where do I get my strength to push through the barriers to get me where I’m at today? It’s my culture and my traditions, you know?

I got a little house in East L.A. and did the gardening. I was doing some acting here and there, doing my own thing… getting back to reality.

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn’t acting. It’s following instructions.

To me, acting is the most logical way for people’s neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves.

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer.