'12 Years a Slave' was very powerful, very moving, and deserved all of the acclaim it did get.

Acting is about truths and the more truths you're able to tell and share with your audience the more connection there will be.

Truths are a result of knowing yourself.

At a certain age you start becoming brave enough to reveal yourself and it's the revealing of who you are that enables you to dig deeper into different characters. You'll get to a point where you can say: 'I can relate to that', 'I know that', 'I don't have to make that up' and that resonates with people in the audience who can tell that you've been there.

'Super 8' was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun working with J.J. Abrams, who I think is a kid in a grown man's body, which is a great ingredient for any artist in our business. You have to be a kid at heart to be able to make believe, and his imagination is phenomenal.

We do have a black president, and that means a lot. People ask, 'What has he done?' What he's done is change the color up, which you see on the screen. When the head of the free world is black, there's got to be some sort of spin-off from it.

I'm a stage actor. You know, I was - I cut my teeth on stage, you know. So I've always had a love affair with the stage, first off, what I was raised in, you know.

Seems like everybody has seen 'Cooley High.' That's what put me on the map. Garrett Morris and I go way back, even before the movie. Great guy. We've done theater and stage plays together, Lincoln Center and all kinds of things.

If you take the '70s with Blaxploitation pictures, there was a proliferation of black-content films and motion pictures, television, stage plays and so forth at a time when Hollywood was in trouble financially, and it was cheaper to do black films to keep the lights on until they could reestablish themselves.

My wife and I have our date nights. We love the Showtime shows like 'Shameless,' 'Homeland' and 'House of Lies.' And of course, 'Scandal' is high on the list; you've got to do 'Scandal.'