I worked with James Orange and Hosea Williams as a teenager, and he's portrayed in the movie by Wendell Pierce. So, for me to be able to come in, 20 years after working with them as a teenager, and to portray Reverend James Orange in 'Selma' is mind-blowing.

When I was a kid, I used to make up all these characters. I love comedy a lot, and I don't get to do it often. Somewhere in the middle, I shifted into doing drama.

It takes a while for audiences on film to see you as something different if they've seen you for so long as a specific character. It's up to the actor to be like, 'Look man, let's try something else,' even if it's an ultra-low-budget independent. People who rep you will keep going with whatever they can send you on.

Because I'm a big guy, I was always playing the bad guy or whatever, but after I did 'The Blind Side,' where I played a father who's a really loving, likeable sort of person, a lot of those barriers were broken down. People saw me as something softer, not so much as a heavy anymore.

Fresh Off the Boat' will be syndicated. This show and these characters will live forever in the pantheon of classic family sitcoms.

I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of the experience that was very helpful in terms of my sensory impressions of Africa. I have traveled quite a bit at distinct times in my life, though now that I have kids I've settled down.

If someone at VH1, the powers that be, said, 'Shaunie, we want you to completely do your family show,' would I do cartwheels on over to it? Absolutely, because that is probably the most fun I've ever had shooting anything ever so I would totally be fine with that and just do my EP but, yeah.

If you come from a normal family, you immediately start playing the role of a boy, a girl a man or a woman, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that those are only roles, limited roles, at that.