I love being on stage, I love being able to tell a story, I love the fact that the audience listens and laughs at it. It makes me happy, and it’s what I live for.
I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.
My show ‘The Big House’ was picked up; they flew me to New York. I’m about to step on stage to announce Kevin Hart’s ‘The Big House.’ And a hand grabs my shoulder, ‘Kevin no, they just decided to cancel it.’ It’s a serious smack-in-the-face business, and either you can take it, or you can’t.
You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.
Before I look stupid and not know what a word means or how to pronounce it, I’ll stop the whole production: ‘Hey, real quick, guys. Define this word for me. Somebody.’
When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.
My kids are coming up in a different time then me. Interracial couples are of the norm. With me, it’s about making sure my kids understand the importance of education and having opportunities that I didn’t.
Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn’t just a director. He’s potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.
