I'm obsessed with how people talk! Accents, dialects... So whenever I go someplace where an accent is extremely distinct - Minneapolis, New Orleans, Jamaica, Vancouver - I always find myself trying to pick up the subtleties of their patterns.
My work schedule doesn't always accommodate my workout schedule, but I make do with what time I've got.
As a freshman at Stanford University - a young black man - when O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder, it was a joyful moment. I was happy, absolutely. It wasn't necessarily a matter of whether he was guilty or innocent, per se, it was a matter of finally seeing someone who looked like me have the justice system work in their favor.
I think O. J. Simpson was a very prominent figure in the African-American community. He was sort of a manifestation of the American dream: 'If it can happen for him, it can happen for me.'
I want to be remembered for a body of work so that when the next guy comes up, he could think of Sterling K. Brown in the same way that I think of Andre Braugher and James Earl Jones.
The first trip I can remember would have to be to Marianna, Arkansas. My mother's parents are from there, and we'd go every year to visit the church where they were buried. We'd attend church service that day, put flowers around their tombstones, and visit with family and friends that still lived there.
Whether the theater is 1,000 seats or 500 seats or 200 seats, you have to make sure the person in the back of the theater can hear you and understand you. So there's a lot of articulation and a lot of voice in theater that really just isn't necessary when it comes to dealing with the camera.
I was at Stanford University up in the West Coast Bay Area, so the biggest song of my freshman year was 'I Got 5 on It' by Luniz, and the 'I Got 5 on It' remix was the joint that everybody was jamming constantly. And then it was also at that particular time that I became a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan.
I've spent so much of my career working intermittently, being busy and then with large swaths of time off, that it became the norm.
Immediately after school, I did a lot of regional theater. I was in Berkeley and Princeton and Minneapolis and all over the country doing wonderful plays for the local audiences.
I have a big family of big people.
When I was a young man, I worked at the Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis, Missouri, and another boys club called Matthews-Dickey.
I see my friends and family who have a passion or a dream, but it's now a dream deferred because they were never naive enough or brazen enough to say, 'Let me do this.'
It's a very frightening feeling to feel like you can have a busted taillight or wear a hoodie or be playing in a park, and someone can take your life away. To have two children, two black boys, you ask yourself a lot of questions about how do I protect my family. Is there anything I can actually do?
My family did a lot of road trips across these continental United States when I was a kid. Twenty or so of us would caravan in four or five vehicles and hit every corner of the connected 48.
What was so lovely about 'O.J.' and 'This Is Us' to a certain extent is that I got a chance to surprise people.
If I can do quality work with wonderful writers and directors and producers... that's the cherry on top.
I have tremendous respect for Christopher Darden, and I recognize him as an individual of integrity, who did his job to the best of his ability, and I want to tell him thank you. Thank you for enduring hatred from his own community, for being ostracized and called an Uncle Tom and a sellout.
Christopher Darden is a very passionate man. He wears his emotion on his sleeve.
I'm very cognizant of the image that's being put out there and the way in which people perceive me. I'm honored and flattered that they see me as being a decent human being. I try my best to be a decent human being, but I fall short of the mark like we all do on a regular basis.
