I think, very often, we're addicted to procedurals, those good guy/bad guy shows, and the 'problem' with procedurals is they all follow the same formula: The bad guy does his thing, the good guy goes after him, and in most cases, the good guy figures out who did it and catches him.

You want to be challenged, so you feel like you want to get up and wrestle with the character or enjoy the character - especially with a TV show, because you know you could be doing it for a long time, so you want to make sure it's something you really enjoy.

When I first came into New York City, what I did was, I didn't have very much money, and I couldn't afford pictures or a resume, so what I used to do is I would tear off the back of a matchbook, and I'd write my name and telephone number on the back of the matchbook.

Everyone does what they believe they need to do in order to survive in this business, 'survive' being the operative word.

I entered Hofstra University as a psychology major.

When was the last time you saw a straight black love story without any guns?

I always feel like I'm running an hour and a half late.

I think that's what good writing is all about. You go into a genre to talk about other things. Tolkein created a whole world to talk about the world he lived in.

Acting-wise, it's always exciting to come back for a third season of any TV show that you're working on.

I want to put something on the screen that audiences have never seen black actors do before, roles that will widen views of who African-Americans are.

In most science-fiction pictures, the black guy is either an engineer or a radio operator, and he is the first guy killed - gone from the movie.

It's a very different thing when you're creating the world as opposed to when you're just part of the world. I love the detail of it, the problem-solving of it, and I love working with actors.

I was different. I got beat up every day.

You make up your mind what part you want to read for and why. It's kept me focused - on what's important, what I want, and what I don't.

Perhaps, despite my objections, the success of films like: 'The Help,' 'Django,' 'The Butler,' or '12 Years a Slave,' will further persuade Hollywood to widen its view and edit its erroneous perception of what a commercial black film can look like.

Hollywood has successfully produced many films framed by anti-racist or pro-integrationist story lines. I'm going to guess that since 'Gone With The Wind,' Hollywood realized films about racism and segregation pull at the heartstrings of everyone and hopefully serve to purge a sense of guilt.

Hollywood, it seems, recognizes black film and black filmmakers, but like a distant lover, never close enough or long enough to forge a meaningful relationship.

I guess on one hand I believe it doesn't matter if there is life after death.

I was maybe one of two black kids in the drama department. It was, 'Well, you can't play this role because that guy has a white girlfriend or a white cousin or whatever.'

If you live a good life, that seems to be what really matters. If there is something afterwards, terrific. If not, you haven't lost anything.

Everywhere I go, someone stops me and says, 'Oh, you're that guy from 'Terminator 2.'' So, it's something that has, you know, been around me since the movie came out.

If there's no craft there, then once the looks go, there goes your career.

Film and television is just a different technique in terms of how to approach the camera but basically the job is the same; but what you learn as a craft in theater, you can then learn to translate that into any mediums.

James Cameron has always been way ahead of the curve in terms of the use of technology in his movies.