Preseason game plans are always about fundamentals and playing football. You're not trying to out-scheme anybody, you're just trying to beat people and out-execute people. That's what's fun to me.
We're not trying to impress anybody. We're not trying to change anybody's mind. We're just out there playing, and it's something we love.
There's people out there, Canadians out there, that have high expectations for me, but I mean, I'm still a kid, still trying to learn the game. I'm just trying to develop my skills as much as possible.
I don't like people getting the best of me or saying that they beat me. Every game I play, every competition I'm in, whether it's in a game, playing cards, video games, whatever it is, I'm trying to win. That's always been my competitive nature.
For me, basketball was always about survival because I was just trying to get out the hood, right? When I got to Chicago, I'm like, 'I'm just trying to survive, and anybody I got to step on or break, so be it.'
When I go out and race, I'm not trying to beat opponents, I'm trying to beat what I have done ... to beat myself, basically. People find that hard to believe because we've had such a bias to always strive to win things. If you win something and you haven't put everything into it, you haven't actually achieved anything at all. When you've had to work hard for something and you've got the best you can out of yourself on that given day, that's where you get satisfaction from.
Who are we talking about? We're talking about the people that are trying to criminalize Donald Trump. We're talking about the people that are trying to impeach him. We're talking about people who are trying to via innuendo and leak and media assassination, we're dealing with people that are trying to destroy Donald Trump and his press secretary just signaled that they are serious about reaching out to these people to try to get certain things done, legislatively, like infrastructure or tax reform.
I'm just trying to have fun, and maybe the way I hold myself kind of freaks people out. I don't feel like an outsider, and I think my friends feel the same way I do. Now that we're playing to larger audiences, maybe we're weird to some people. But I'm trying to express what I am.
It doesn't matter if it's preseason or a scrimmage. I'm trying to have a dominant performance, whether it's preseason first series or whenever I get out there.
The motivation for me is just the game itself, just playing the game the right way and trying to win, compete every time I step out there on the floor. That's motivation enough for me to go out there and play well.
The last thing I'm trying to do is trying to look to go out into a fight. Ask anybody who knows me, I'm not the first guy to go around and just start pushing people.
I've just stopped worrying about what the game plan looks like, how many targets am I going to have in a game, all of the stuff that would distract me when having fun out there on the football field. It's allowed me to be less stressed and enjoy my teammates more and go out there with a loose mentality and have more fun.
It's my job. I am just going in there trying to win games. But it is always fun when you are playing football.
I should just stop trying to control what's coming out of my mouth. I'm always going to keep what's important to me in mind and I completely understand considering that we're playing characters that are so coveted by so many people so I get why they want to know more about us. I just sort of have to not think about it.
Going into Portland, I was just trying to not step on anybody's toes, stay quiet, and play my game. I think I was just trying to figure out the kind of sequences I was going to see as a hitter and learn from that.
I like it all. I love getting inside of people's heads and playing what drives people and what makes them do what they do. That's always been what's most interesting to me about being an actor. The analyzing of what's happening, but even more so, just letting it all go and playing is fun. I love just seeing what comes out of you.
It's never a matter ever, ever - are - we're never trying to gross anybody out, or ever are we trying to shock people. We're just trying to make it funny in a way that makes the audience go, 'You know, that was the first joke they thought of, and they weren't afraid to do it.'