When you have to play a character that seems to be a relatively decent person and seems to be like yourself, I think the trick in that kind of character, so that you don't become a cliche, is to find where their weaknesses are.
“During the days of segregation, there was not a place of higher learning for African Americans. They were simply not welcome in many of the traditional schools. And from this backward policy grew the network of historical black colleges and universities.”
“Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.”