In a lot of films, they're showing more complete, developed characters of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The larger concern is to be able to tastefully explore the stereotypes, and still move past them to see the core of people.

I'm an actor. And I guess I've done so many movies I've achieved some high visibility. But a star? I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.

As an actor, I've always wanted to do characters that would help me find my connection with others and connect all of us together. You always want the energy of the character, the spirit of the person, to enter you. I've been doing this for 26 years and some of the things I've done are always with me.

I'm fascinated by the capacity to be able to do harm. I struggle every day with the ability of people to do evil. Not just the big things - the petty things that people do in order to make someone feel small, when it's so easy to do, and it hurts so much.

It is possible for a kid from east Texas, raised in south central LA and Carson, who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and to have them happen.

I submerged myself in all the information that I could find about Idi Amin. I mean, before I left Los Angeles, I was studying Kiswahili. I was working on the dialect. I was studying every documentary and tape of him that I could find - not just visual, but also audiocassettes, even in other languages when he was speaking in other dialects.

I am just back from South Sudan, one of the world's most fragile nations. For years, I have been moved by the kind people who maintain hope that they will live to see peace. My heart has ached for them, as they have endured pain and violence that make such hope feel out of reach.

The key is that I'm trying to keep growing and trying to keep learning and deepen my connection in every way, in my life, in my work. That's what I do when I look at a role.

I liked 'Star Wars' as a kid. I liked science fiction.

I can play a man who's despicable. But I'll still look inside him to find a point of connection. If I can find that kernel, audiences will relate to me.

College football, acting, opera singing - I approached them all in the same obsessive way.

The characters I've portrayed may outwardly be quite different from one another, but I've found that they're also intrinsically linked.

There's a molecule inside of you that is connected to everything - every person, every energy, every thing. You look for it, and when you find it, then you allow it to magnify and grow and be the dominating chemistry inside of you.

While it's easy for South Sudan to feel distant, the situation is all too real for the South Sudanese mothers choosing which child gets to eat tomorrow. This is a time when we must look outward together and declare that humanity has no borders - no one deserves to suffer like this, especially in a world of such abundance.

It's all about destiny. That's why people look at the zodiac or the I Ching - because there's a certain order to life, and that order has been lived since the beginning of time. No matter what you do, you're going to live inside of it.

You try to pull away the experiences until you get to the core of humanity, and you find that light that exists in everybody. It's that light that I'm searching for in all of my work - is that connective thing, that ether that enters all of us - you know what I mean? That's a part of God.

It's a contract of connection to be in the same space and watch and listen to stories and be caught in them. When you're in a theater, your brain expands because somebody in the theater may do something or respond to something that you wouldn't have.

It's important for youth, black youths particularly, to be able to fill in the blanks of themselves so they can know completely who they are, but also all the country to understand what this means: what the civil rights movement does to us as people. It is part of the journey that we must be on in order to become fully evolved human beings.

The Internet is part of our evolution. The mystics used to say, 'We can travel across the planet in a thought.' Now we really can. We can be connected with a million people at a time.

When we talk about the issue of child soldiers, it can be easy to focus just on ending recruitment and liberating those boys and girls who are currently being held in military camps. Obviously, both of these are incredibly important goals, but it's also essential that we not forget about former child soldiers once they are liberated.

I was asked if I would play President Obama in 'My Name is Khan.' I didn't feel comfortable with doing it. Partly because he was still in office, but mainly because I felt that there were other people who were better suited to doing the role.

For many child soldiers, war and violence are all they have ever known. If we don't take it upon ourselves to show them an alternative, then they're going to be soldiers forever, and they'll continue to be recruited and to participate in violence if another conflict starts five or 10 years down the road.

When children and youth are deprived of their right to education, their community is deprived of a sustainable future. It is all the more true with refugees.

I've been trying to understand conflict and violence ever since I was a kid. You know. There were a few things that happened even on my block - the Black Panthers used to be right around the corner from where we were.