I've had the acting bug since I was, like, five. But growing up, I saw how people treated me differently when they knew who my father was, even the stuff I did on the field. Sometimes I'd rush for 100 yards, and the headline would be, 'Denzel's son runs for 100 yards.' That's where the suppression of that bug came from.

The injury that ended my time in football turned out to be serendipitous. I tore my Achilles while training for a pending tryout with the New York Giants, and when it snapped, so did my career, basically. That's what led me to gain the confidence to get into the acting world on my own terms.

Coming from a football background, when everybody is doing their job and operating on such a high level, it only motivates you to do the same.

I was ignorant before I did my research of a lot of African American police officers out there who are doing their job and doing it the right way.

I was the one who took football off the back pages and put it on to page one.

In the media, I always seemed to come across as someone who was poking fun at the Scots and their football. I guess the Scottish public needed someone to blame for their international defeats, and I fitted the bill perfectly.

Every year's going to be a what-if. That's the game of basketball. What if a guy turns his ankle? What if a guy gets in a car wreck coming to the arena? There are so many different aspects that could happen that nobody knows. Only the man upstairs knows.

My whole football life is pressure. If I don't get pressure from outside I put pressure on myself.