I think the role suits him perfectly. I think he’s going to be great. He’s an exemplary actor. He’s insanely talented. Up until they say, “Action,” he’s either playing the drums, the guitar or singing on set. There’s nothing in him that is Vic Mackey [his character in “The Shield”]. Even the blocking rehearsals are comedic. If you were on set, he’s got a can of air and he’s like, “Oh, what should we do with your hair today? Oh, I’m supposed to be here, I’m sorry!”
Are you going to be back on Season 4 of “The Shield?”
If we can work out the scheduling, I’m wide open to it. I have nothing but love for “The Shield” and the people that created it. I love the character and hopefully if they want me back, I’m more than interested. Michael is shooting the movie, so they are not going to start until January. So possibly it could work out. I know both shows are open to it. I think it’s a business decision and they’re working out the particulars right now, and hopefully it will work out because I want to be an actor’s actor. I want to be considered or seen as an actor’s actor. I want to be a character lead, not a ‘leading man.’ They do different things and I think “Second Time Around,” “The Shield” and “Mr. 3000” are three different animals.
What do you do in your down time?
I sit in my trailer or my dressing room and try to figure out what I’m going to do next. I’m trying to learn golf. Golf is a Zen sport where any outside thing in your brain translates into a bad shot. It’s very helpful for me to try to get better at golf because it will teach me how to relax.
I have so many different interests. I have my dance company and I write and I produce. I’m doing “Second Time Around” and stuff for this, and you go play golf and you just focus on the white ball in the green grass, and that’s it. I play basketball in a couple of leagues, hang out with my family, I like to camp and I love music, so I go to concerts a lot.
Were you a dancer at one time?
Yeah, I’m trained in ballet, jazz and modern. I have a dance company in Boston called Phunk Phenomenon. It’s an urban dance theatre and we have a school. My partner really runs the nuts and bolts of it now because I’m here. But I open doors for them to get into different things, or I try as much as I can now.
Would you like to do a musical?
I don’t really sing all that well. I dance, but I would love to do something like “Chicago” or “Moulin Rouge.” In the studio I’m sure my voice could be made to sound palatable, if not better than that. But I’m sure I could pull off the dancing part. That would be fun.
When you were playing sports did you think ahead about getting into acting?
Anything I’m doing right now, even though I do multiple things at once, I try to focus just on that, otherwise you get too spread out and you’re going to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Hopefully, the things that I do, or attempt to do, I do well because I have the ability to focus on them singularly at the time that I’m doing them.
I never thought about being a professional athlete when I was a kid. I was worried about school and being a school athlete, a high school athlete, a college athlete, and then you worry about each day as it comes. And acting…kind of happened and then once I got the opportunity, I treated it like sports. When you’re a football player, you workout, you eat right, you watch film, you train. As soon as I got the job on “Moesha,” I got three different classes - an improv class, a technique class, and I got a coach to film me so I could get over watching film. I became a student of films [and] watched “Inside the Actor’s Studio” to listen to different philosophies. And really was challenged on why I wanted to do this. It was because of the reason that it fulfilled me, the same way sports did. It was very, I don’t want to say competitive, but ‘in the moment’-type of occupation, and I like that. I like that galvanized energy, that heightened sense of reality that happens from competing in an athletic event or the synergy that happens after “Action” is called.
