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I'm going to try to not let anyone put me in a box, and that certainly applies to the things I do outside of acting.

Hollywood is a very interesting place to deal with. And having been a theatre person, I was quite surprised by the slipperiness of some people in Holly-weird. There was a part of me that just said, 'If this is the way the game is played, I'm not sure I want to play it.'

Every actor wants to break out of the box that they put you in and that's where I'm heading, out of the box as fast as I can.

I wonder if that's hurt me at the box office. Maybe audiences these days want to know exactly what to expect when they go into a movie, and my movies are hard to explain in just one way.

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to whittle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious. So, it's always a challenge, whether I'm lying in a hospital bed or flying around with a rocket pack on my back, or what have you. On the best of days, it's a challenge for me.

I always like to challenge myself. I never want to be put into a box.

There's this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didn't want to be doing the same thing all the time. Every now and then, you crash and burn, but that's part of it.

I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.