Michael Imperioli

To be at acting school, it was kind of the first time you felt the freedom to be as much of yourself as you wanted. People weren't going to judge you.

My family is my life, and everything else comes second as far as what's important to me.

I do smoke in real life. A lot. We're all smoking right now in fact.

'Detroit 1-8-7' — the numbers are police slang for murder — is filmed in that blue-collar Michigan city, providing a flavor of authenticity. Detroit offers a unique visual landscape that tells the story of the city and what it's been through.

Detroit is a city that really stands out. It's been through a very difficult time. There's been a lot of pain here, and the city, physically, has suffered. You can see it in certain neighborhoods, and there's buildings downtown that have been abandoned.

I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.

I played guitar in a band from when I was about 20 for three years. Then I sang a little. Then I started getting really busy as an actor and forgot about it.

Back 20 years ago, there was a division between movie actors and TV actors. That's kind of gone away. People who have had a lot of success in movies in the past now want to be on TV. There used to be much more of a quality division between TV and movies, and that's kind of not the case anymore.