Once I started working as a professional actor, it was like, 'Bye-bye waiting tables, bye-bye bartending, bye-bye all the cliched jobs actors do.' But after a year of not getting work, there's this really difficult conflict, like, 'Do I have to go back to being a waiter when people recognize me from a show?'

Public perception is obviously important to an actor's career.

Just because you get a show and it gets on the air doesn't mean jack. It certainly means that you'll be considered for stuff, but you've got to fight and claw to get every job.

If you don't know how to play hockey, learn. If you quit, get back out there.

The truth is nobody was a Muslim until Public Enemy came out. Then, everybody was Muslim this and Muslim that. It's a bandwagon thing. Islam is a way of life... it's a religion. It's not just something you put on a record.

My book 'The Exciting Adventures of Boo' was first published when I was fifteen. It is a children's book with ten different stories. In each story, the main character Boo learns a lesson - one of the ten most important lessons I learned as a kid. I also donated all the money from my books I personally sold to my local ASPCA Animal Shelter.

The richest people are those who have life arranged so they have food for the family and the rent or mortgage paid. After that, at least in my case, it can become a pretty boring existence if wealth is the only objective.

Acting is many things. Acting is playing lines, of course, but it's much more profound than that. Acting is truth-telling and trying to find the truth in a human situation, which will be sketched out by a screenwriter with all the skill that a screenwriter can do; but in the end, that's just the map of the journey.