With any sort of entertainment, you hope people are entertained.
When I finally got the chance to do 'The People v. O.J. Simpson,' my peers embraced me with the same attitude. They didn't make me feel small or insignificant. They treated me as a peer. It was a wonderful experience.
I just try to do something to sweat at least an hour a day.
On Twitter, there'll be fans of 'Army Wives' and people who say, 'I've been following you since 'Supernatural,' I loved you on 'Person of Interest,'' and it's really cool to get that love. To them, I'm not just an overnight success.
I'm a huge fan of 'Predator.'
I didn't grow up feeling very handsome.
The prism through which you experience life is so unique. There is no objective experience.
My wife and I will often have conversations about 'Good Times' and 'The Jeffersons' and 'Sanford and Son.' They were doing incredible stuff that was very funny but also very socially conscious.
The beauty of theater is that you get to live the character from beginning to end without stopping. The natural momentum of the story propels you through in such a way that feels organic.
My dad passed away when I was 10.
I go to grad school at NYU, and I learn all these things about speech and voice and games. It's like camp for an actor, and I got a chance to immerse myself 12 to 14 hours a day in what I love.
When I walked up on stage at the Emmys, and when people stood up, it was a really sort of emotional, overwhelming moment. It was like I had been accepted.
I never assume people are going to recognize me.
I think the therapeutic part of acting is allowing myself to step into another human being's shoes. It allows me the ability to release judgment, if I had any judgment to begin with. It's an opportunity to understand rather than to stand outside and point fingers.
I'm obsessed with how people talk! Accents, dialects... So whenever I go someplace where an accent is extremely distinct - Minneapolis, New Orleans, Jamaica, Vancouver - I always find myself trying to pick up the subtleties of their patterns.
As a father of two black sons now, you ask yourself, 'What do I have to do to assure the safety of these boys?' It can be daunting.
I go to Stanford, and I'm an economics major, not thinking I'm going to do anything with acting. A professor came to the dorm where I lived looking for people to audition for an August Wilson play, 'Joe Turner's Come And Gone.' I gave it a shot, got one of the lead roles in the play.
I've always been of the mind that what's mine is mine, and nobody can take it away from me. So when it comes, great. When it goes, great.
Busy is good, you know. Busy is better than bored, and there's more recognition. Like, I try to feign the anonymity which I had before 'O.J.'