I don't choose to take a role to prove to someone what I can do. It's an August Wilson play. I met with the playwright, I read for the playwright. In my career, that's like meeting Bill Cosby — meeting him is enough for me.

If the playwright knew every little thing about his play, why bother? There must be discovery all the time, otherwise why bother to do it?

I love theater. To have the people onstage right there, to be working in concert with other artists, this is a like a school of fish moving together.

I think the real understanding comes when we recognize our humanity in each other. That's not just between blacks and whites. That's between all religions as well.

Let me just say that to imagine racism does not exist is imagination. And to imagine that it does not create its own set of problems is true imagination. So let's not imagine that racism is gone, extinguished, because it's not. We are seeing this in the top levels of the political arena, and we are seeing it very, very plainly.

There was a time when I couldn't watch sitcoms for a while because it was just cacophony, it was just noise.