Richard Cabral

If we grow up in these communities where we have gangs, well, what do you think we're going to belong to? That's what happened to me and what's still happening to hundreds of thousands of other individuals.

I didn't know that I could be an actor until I was 25 years old, and now I continue to go back to the prisons and probation camps and the inner city to say that you don't have to go through the violence, through the trauma like I did.

Homeboy Industries is a healing center for broken children. I was a broken child, and they showed me how to put all those pieces back together. It's not about being a gangster. It's about being a man or a woman trying to recover and live better.

I think 98% of gang members in Los Angeles would agree that being a gang is just like being part of a community.

Being an artist, being an actor, it's about telling stories that could heal, that could open up discussion that could make the community better.

No one cares about you when you're in jail.

As an actor, I draw from myself.

I'm definitely not joking around on set.

I didn't grow up with any brothers, but I have my cousins, and I had my good friends, so I know what it is to have that bro relationship.

Nobody succeeds on their own. Someone has to be there to show them the way, and if you give that experience to a person on the street - a gang member, a prisoner - he might succeed. That's how it was for me.

I never became an actor for people to want to take pictures with me or wanting my autograph. I feel I am nothing more special than the next living soul, but I understand that I work in entertainment, and this attraction comes with the territory.

I was one step away from getting my life taken away, whether it was life in prison or being dead on the streets. But I was saved.