I turn down a lot of movies because sometimes they glamorize violence or the darker side of sex or criminality.

I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.

Because I was aspirational, I did my work, I was respectful to my teachers, I experienced a lot of bullying from the black kids. My friends were largely white or Asian.

As artists, our primary function is not to be educators - but we are at a time in history, where for us, our history needs to give context for stories that we hope to tell down the road.

I turned down a lot of easier opportunities in order to go for the things that I really and ultimately wanted to do. And what's really nice is that it's starting to work. I've been an actor for coming up on 14 years now and the level of activity that's taking place now is a culmination of a slow cooker approach to as opposed to a microwave.

from trading in sex ... as well as violence to exploiting material ripped 'straight from the day's headlines' to casting, if not a completely sympathetic eye, at least an emphatic one on its lead gangster ...