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Most people are fascinated by what I did as a teenager, but when I look back at my life, I don't think very much about those years. I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.

I was in jail four and a half years. When I came out, I continued the same struggle against injustice, but instead of using weapons, I began to use art and cinema.

During my time in prison, I told myself that I wanted to be a part of the solution and not the problem.

I was married to someone who wanted me to change. Become more adult, more responsible. I began not to like myself, not like what I do. I lost my identity. Everything began collapsing around me.

When I left prison, I had to figure out how to embrace my past.

I wanted to study painting and become a painter, but I had a huge flip-over in my life when I was about 18 or 19. I was part of a criminal environment; I got arrested and convicted, and I had to start thinking in a new way.

When I was younger, I didn't have the finer things in life. It was around me - the cars, the jewelry and all of that. But I didn't have it. So I did bad things to get what I wanted. Going to jail never crossed my mind. I wish it had. When I was locked up, my mother didn't support me because she couldn't accept who I was and where I was.

I had no work after 'Gangster' for two years, and my sister Rangoli met with an accident that destroyed her looks. My struggle with my parents combined with the industry not accepting me made me feel alienated.

I was just a guy who ran away from home at 16 because my parents were getting a divorce and the judge was making me choose which parent to live with. I didn't want to make that choice. I ended up in New York City.

I got to New York when I was eighteen. I was knocking around, trying to be an actor, writer, musician, whatever happened.