You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged.
When you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up. Once you get to the point where Hollywood sees that you create results, then the demand for you becomes higher.
My style of comedy is more self-deprecating. I think that makes me more relatable. When you deal with ‘topics’ – race, white versus black – you’re not separating from the pack. You’re doing what everybody else is doing.
I’ve done a great job at being universal in my stand-up, which is why, for ‘Let Me Explain,’ I toured all over the world. These movies I have coming out – ‘Ride Along,’ ‘Grudge Match,’ ‘About Last Night,’ ‘Think Like a Man Too’ – are putting me in a position to become universal on an even bigger scale.
I never looked back there, but she was like, ‘Will you all just shut up!’ And I just got up and moved three rows in front. She was like, ‘What are you doing?!’ I was like, ‘You better get up here! I don’t play the fighting games.’
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.
