Corey Hawkins

I'm the guy coming from Juilliard.

Growing up, we never got to see a hero who didn't have superpowers who looked like us, that you could kind of look to and say, 'I could be that guy one day. I could be a patriot. I could be a soldier. I could work in the government and be a hero.'

I'm so OCD about prep work and learning lines and stuff.

I have members of my family who are in the military. I have friends who are in the military. Classmates who served in the military.

I want longevity in this career.

Heading out to L.A., doing this acting thing. You can't rest on your laurels out there. You finish a film, you don't know how it's going to do. You're talking about that next job, usually.

I knew I wanted to be an artist early on, but I decided to seriously pursue the profession when I auditioned for Juilliard.

It's always weird when it comes to awards and awards season because how can you say that this performance is better than this performance? Art is so subjective.

To be honest, sometimes you have to know your rights.

My mother's a police officer, so there was only so much trouble I could get myself into. But my father grew up on the other side.

The thing with '24' is that because it moves so much, it's a challenge, and sometimes things get revealed about these characters as you go.

If the challenge wasn't there, there's no reason to say 'yes' to the role.