They’re all seventh, eighth, ninth grade. They’re students, but some of them didn’t have basic reading fundamentals. It was so heartbreaking. I don’t think I’m completely naïve about the world and how fucked up it is in the inner city. At the same time, I was being confronted with kids that are thirteen, fourteen years old who couldn’t read language that was written basically like how they talked. It wasn’t big words. It was like, “Pass me this,” or something. I don’t remember the dialogue, but it was sad. It was like, “Okay, I got to cast the kid that can read the lines.” For me, it just
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