What was your initial reaction to the role of Kiki?
I thought, I don’t know if I want to play another cop, especially for eight months, because I did it in (David Ayer’s End of Watch with Jake Gyllenhaal). But this was a fantastic role. I thought, wow, this guy, he’s full of a lot of tough love, and he’s just completely different. Also, the world was different. It was a time when the DEA was Pena, David Dastmalchian and TI in ‘Ant-Man’ (2015),
Fifteen years ago, it was really, really tough because there were these breakdowns for (casting) where it would specifically say, ‘Lead part: Caucasian; second part: Caucasian; Caucasian, Caucasian, Caucasian.’ And it wouldn’t be until the 10th part that it would be open to African-Americans. And then it would be up to ‘15: open to all ethnicities.’ So the best that I could do back in the day was 15th place. I was offered gangster parts all the time. Nowadays, that doesn’t exist.