I've been clear about what I'm purposed to do from young.

I gave my autograph to my teachers when I was 13, and said, "I'm going to be famous.

You should keep this."

My mother took me to see "Alice in Wonderland" when I was four, off Broadway.

And I remember just the magic of theater, the costumes, the lights, the characters.

I just remember this overwhelming feeling of, "I want to do that.

Whatever that thing is, I want to do it."

It's important to always remember that feeling.

This is the thing, this is the connective tissue.

It's not about fame, it's not about Hollywood, it's not about money.

It's... you know, those things are nice, and those things are part of the business, but the essential piece is what we do as artists is a healing art.

One of the things about live theater that I think is so sacred is the fact that you perform for a live audience.

The energy of the audience affects you.

So some nights there's a quiet energy.

Some nights there's a very excited energy.

And I'm fascinated by, like, collectively, did all the quiet people just show up on Tuesday at 8:00, and then all the loud people on Wednesday at 3:00?

Like, what determines that, you know?

I find that fascinating.

And so the audience definitely can influence a show.

Black audience can really influence a show.

"Hey, Malik, what's up?"

Whoa.

That experience with my people...

I love my people.

I just take a moment to say, "Listen, "it's not interactive theater unless you're told it's interactive theater."

"New York Undercover" was great on a lot of levels.

But it was also profoundly impactful and disturbing in that I lost anonymity and lost innocence at the same time.

Because literally you went from being somebod that people might have seen in a couple of little things to being seen on television every week in the '90s, at a time when there weren't black folks on television in dramatic roles significantly.

I became disillusioned.

I mean, when you have women from every walk of life, type, and stripe coming at you, it's unnatural.

You can suffer from believing your own hype.

I think if I didn't have the grounding of my family, if I didn't have the spirit of service, if I didn't have those things to anchor me down, then I could have definitely gone off the rails.

I had the great honor of being the 13th actor to play Martin Luther King, Jr. in a film.

And to me it was the most amazing experience of my life as an artist.

Like, I would put the big headphones on.

Not the little ear buds, but the big ones.

You know, and I'd lay there for hours at a time and just listen, and just get his spirit in my spirit.

I don't think about how I'm going to say a line, or what I'm going to say, or, you know, I'm going to hit this beat.

I don't think about any of that stuff.

I just truly allow his spirit to sort of pass through me.

So when I see the actors that I love, like Daniel Day Lewis, or Gary Oldman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, fully get up in another human being and transform, that's... that's the richest experience.

To share that experience and create that experience for other people is important.