Basketball wasn't going particularly well, but in my senior year, I did a play and got a wonderful card from a professor that said, 'I don't know what your plans are after school or if acting is a part of it, but you have something special.' Hearing that from someone who I had so much respect for pointed me in that direction.
I was a sports kid.
I really wasn't into comic books growing up.
I grew up on a wide range of stuff. OutKast, they been around for over 20 years, and some of the L.A. cats like Defari, Dilated Peoples and Likwit Crew. I was always going to these shows and catching the KRS-One tennis ball, as he would throw those out, EPMD. I could go on and on.
I have had that same experience where there are several people who have come up in my life at the right time and have made critical contributions to how I see the world and how I see myself.
If you convert to Islam after a couple of decades of being a black man in the U.S., the discrimination you receive as a Muslim doesn't feel like a shock.
I was supremely fortunate to do several projects that I'm really excited about. So within all that, there's a lot going on this year. I'm excited about 2016.
I got out of grad school in 2000. I was about 26 years old. I've always said that I was late to acting because I didn't really start doing it in a focused way until I was in my early 20s.
My dream role is Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion.
I saw this documentary he did years ago called 'Fade to Black.' I was always a Jay Z fan - I liked Jay Z - but after I saw that documentary, I loved Jay Z. I realized how intelligent he was.
If you're not careful as an actor, you can find yourself, at a certain point, a little bit bored.
I prayed every day of my life, and that was instilled in me as a kid, and as I've gotten older, that's just matured in me.
We live in diverse communities with all sorts of people from all sorts of different backgrounds. The more our entertainment can be a reflection of the world we live in, the better it is for all of us.
What I think I learned from working on 'Moonlight' is you see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves.
I've never seen anyone - and I've had the opportunity to work with some really terrific actors in my time - but Philip Seymour Hoffman is definitely the best I ever had the opportunity to work with.
I do believe in the potential of like-minded people coming together.
For my characters, it's important to get really specific about what they listen to. Because it affects how they move in the world.
I love hip hop. It's such an appendage for me. It's something that's always shaped my experience out in the world.
There are so many women who contributed in a very real way in pushing for the space program during the time in which there was a lot of competition to get into space first, and to know that there were African-American women who were integral in that success is pretty phenomenal.
It's still amazing, but when I was growing up, Harlem was the Mecca of black culture. I was so inspired by it, the aspirational feeling you'd get spending time there. Experiences that were really specific to that place.
