Stephan James

I really believe in speaking things into existence.

I've always been pretty reserved, but after taking drama classes in middle school to get more comfortable performing in front of people, I thought I should try out for television.

When we started making 'Selma,' the Black Lives Matter movement didn't exist. The parallels between Martin Luther King staging these marches, suffering police brutality... we weren't even aware when making the film that these sorts of things would start to happen again in 2015.

I think I have an incredible group of people that I work with and people I'm inspired by and community I'm inspired by, and I just want to see us all win and continue to grow and flourish and do incredible things and tell stories in the way they've never been told. Take risks, be bold, and be smart.

I got obsessed with impersonations: impersonating people that I knew - people, not famous people but people like my family. At first, it was just fun; it's always been just fun. But I sort of got to a point in maybe seventh or eighth grade where I started getting heavily involved in drama programs via programs in my high school.

My mom used to buy us a whole lot of VHS tapes - we had boxes of them, hundreds of them. So we would just go through movies all the time.

I've been a big fan of Barry Jenkins for a long time.

When is not a good time to speak up for our vets and support them in any way that we can?

I'm black, yeah, but I'm just an actor, so everything I do doesn't have to be color-specific or specific to history. But I got to a point where a lot of people wanted to offer me period pieces, like that's the only thing I could do.

The first time I sat in a theater and watched myself on a screen was an out-of-body experience. It blew my mind.

While shooting 'Selma,' I would train on my off time with the assistant men's track and field coach at Georgia Tech.

Luckily enough, I've been able to work with Ava DuVernay, who was able to rally this large ensemble and get us all on the same page for 'Selma.'