No one cares about you when you're in jail.

Art saved my life.

I didn't know that I could be an actor until I was 25 years old, and now I continue to go back to the prisons and probation camps and the inner city to say that you don't have to go through the violence, through the trauma like I did.

I was one step away from getting my life taken away, whether it was life in prison or being dead on the streets. But I was saved.

The lifestyle that I grew up in, it was passed on to me. I didn't know there was another world.

I remember my first thing was 'CSI: Miami.' I played a Cuban gangster. And that was it. I was like, 'Wow, I don't have to clean toilets.' I could actually dress up and get paid equivalent to that. So that was my introduction into the Hollywood industry.