Some of the most amazing people I've met in life are cops.

For a long time, I had been very secretive about a lot of the things I'd been through personally, and a lot of that is purposeful. My fan base, for the large part, is the younger generation. They're like, 'I want to know everything! I want to know it all!'

Craft is everything.

If your character is just out there acting a fool, viewers are gonna say, 'Why am I watching this?' But if he's whispering, 'I don't really want to die,' there's a level of vulnerability cemented in these bad characters.

When I think about the person who's been most in my ear, it's Joe Dumars.

I grew up in Decatur, Georgia. We had three boys in the household; actually, it felt like four of us. My pops sort of raised my uncle, too. So, it was four boys and, later, a younger sister.

I don't think there's a fan out there who hasn't had a family member or known someone personally who's been in the midst of divorce - perhaps not necessarily gotten the divorce or executed it, or perhaps they have - and still, in many cases, they found themselves back with the person that they were married to.

I think 'Dark Blue' came to me while I was doing a project in London. I read it, and the character immediately popped out at me.

I'm not shutting myself off from kids; I'm remaining open to kids and the energy that they bring.

Poetry has, in a way, been my bridge to my acting career.

I worked on the workshop of 'Topdog/Underdog' before it went to Broadway. My minor in school was theater, so I'm based in that, and then I moved to Los Angeles.

I was raised looking at women who were strong, and they weren't really into playing race cards or playing gender cards. I didn't grow up around women who were like, 'Well, let the boys do that, and let the girls do that.' I didn't really see that in my house.

Women are amazing lovers.

I grew up in a two-parent household. We all played sports, all sports, which cost a lot of money. My pops was an attorney; he went to College of the Holy Cross with Clarence Thomas. My mom worked a bit, then gradually came home and took care of us full time.

Playing a cop goes a long way. I have a lot of friends who are working as actors, and as soon as I started playing military characters or cops, and not the actual criminal that we're chasing on this show, they all said, 'You actually can have a career now.'

I don't make a big deal out of playing football at UGA to people who have interviewed me.

I was at a ballpark as much as I was in school. I was on a basketball court or football field as much as I was in school, so I definitely was receiving mentorship when it came to coaches, my father, my grandfather, and my uncles.

I really had a problem with being 'the man.' I'm past it now, but that was my insecurity. I ran from that. I was cool with being No. 3 on the call sheet or No. 2.

Actors are intelligent. Yet, many of them do not communicate well. That's what makes it so hard to have a relationship with one.

I think, by nature you know, I'm very attracted and I gravitate toward the very strong girl who can watch a ballgame, but who's also extremely feminine.

That point of life when I learned I could cook, that always made me understand what cooks felt like feeding other people. It's okay to receive, but it's really cool to give, so food is to me sexy because it's the fact that someone is giving it to someone else.

Spike Lee gave me the greatest reaction to the fact that I was this athlete-meets-artist, because I think he saw that I was different. I learned that oftentimes, Spike directs in a sense that he might just stare at you and look at you in a telepathic way of communicating.

A powerful person is equally cool with their flaws and things that aren't powerful about them at all.

You know how you can be romantic? You can be romantic by going to a beautiful setting, sitting on a park bench, and getting good ole-fashioned golden arches, a.k.a. McDonald's. That's probably the best I can do romantically.

That's the thing with me being a former athlete: in the way I attack characters and attack poetry is from the base of being an athlete.

I'm safe where I'm at just being the guy where people go, 'That's a really good actor. What's his name again?' I liked being at that place.

I did 'Fences' off-broadway at the Beacon Theater, so it's amazing that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis brought it to Broadway.

It's rare for artists to really stare deeply at themselves in the mirror, literally, because there's constantly a mirror on you.

I'm always like, 'Well, let's not rest on a critical acclaim or on a incredible review or on a great reception.'

You know, I think anybody who has been in relationships has access to heartbreak - I don't think we have to go far to find it, whether we inflicted the heartbreak or whether we were the recipient of it.

The way the recession has affected Hollywood, a lot of actors that had robust opportunities before in film no longer have such plum options, so cable has done a good job of becoming a happy medium for artists deemed film actors.

As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think it's very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

I've been described as a smart actor because I've attended college. Or I've been called an artsy jock. And I am thinking, 'So, are actors supposed to be dumb?'

As a poet, I would always hear emcees come up to me and say, 'Yo, you should rap,' and I was like, 'No.' You know, the label was tough for me. I'm a poet. I was proud of that distinction between the two, not wanting to be the other.

I use Aveeno cleansers and moisturizers.

I always had an interest in telling stories.

Life as a poet and actor truly became full circle as I stood on stage as host of 'Verses & Flow' and lived in both of these outfits. It was one of the best experiences of my professional life.

Real to Reel is a rare opportunity for new filmmakers to screen their work for industry insiders.

The reality is our story and the way we love and our taste in clothing and everything else. And what we ambitiously feel we can be.

I have very much been a guy who's acknowledged how many women have directed me, have produced... it's been unbelievable.

Women are so necessary for us in terms of support.

You can't look at the dollar and say, 'I'm not what I dreamed of being unless I do this type of movie and it's a blockbuster that gives me this amount of dollars.' That's not good.

If you remain open to great directors who look like you, who know what they're doing and are making impactful films that are destroying these 'blockbuster films,' you can do okay, and everybody can get more of a piece of the pie. But you've got to be open and brave.

I come from the stage, so I started in New York, lived there for eleven years.

We are a total of our sum parts, right? I came from a family of very strong women - black women. And if I go back as far as my great grandmothers, there was always that love and the ability to be nurturing. Then I grew up in a household where my father was the one who was more affectionate with me.

I was definitely a Daddy's boy.

I'd say my artistic bent definitely came from my father, who was a trial lawyer. And if you're smart, you know that a trial lawyer isn't that different from an actor. He was a poet as well.

So many athletes who have been close to me have been everything to me.

I got in trouble for saying I would move my family to Europe, but I said it.