Nowadays, people have an open mind vis-a-vis new artists like Meghan Trainor, Nico & Vinz, Hozier - there are hits coming out of everywhere.

We like to be the people who go - can go out into the world and say we're the people seeking places that need bridges built and need the kind of energy that we bring, and then actively doing the show. We will pay for it ourselves. We just want to bring the kind of enjoyment that we know we can bring.

I don't understand Chicago, but I really do hope that the Commander-in-Chief addresses his home town. I think those young kids don't see outside their small box. I think they don't see outside their circumstances, so they kind of resort to anything.

Wherever technology's going, we're cool with it. We're definitely promoters of kids trying out new stuff.

There weren't any funny people in sports or the Spanish club. All the really creative, witty, funny people that made your belly hurt were in the theater program.

It's not that I don't believe in creativity and innovation and new ideas, and the creativity that comes with fashion, which I really respect. But one of my biggest concerns is just how cheap we expect everything to be.

You can work really hard on your physicality, on your craft, on the films you do. You can choose the best of directors, the best of productions, get the best technicians, you can put your entire body and soul into the making of a film, but at the end of the day, it all depends on the mood of that one audience member that goes into that theater.

I started writing in the '90s, so I was free to just have an eccentric career and not conform to some idea of what a black writer has to do. I didn't have the burden of representation.