As a kid growing up in Chicago, I've been shot at before. I remember I very calmly went down on the ground. Afterwards, you're like, 'Omigod.' You just don't have time to think.

Regardless of whatever job you do, you want to see the importance of it or how it can be important. I think by inspiring the people that I come from - if I inspire anyone - would be worth it.

When I did 'Crash,' to be honest with you, it was just another acting job. I just wanted to do as good as I possibly could.

Some of my favorite actors are Gene Wilder and Eddie Murphy back in the day - that's mainly what me and my brothers watched when we were kids.

There's a lot to be said for an American-style liberal-arts education, which prevents young people from professionalizing right away.

I couldn't run a tight schedule, and if you're any good at teaching, you get sucked dry because you like your students and you're trying to help them, but you don't have any time left to write yourself.

I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.

I remember being in a history lesson and saying to my teacher, 'How come you never talk about black scientists and inventors and pioneers?' And she looked at me and said, 'Because there aren't any.'