This actor is telling all about how he keeps the spark in his marriage

September 15, 2017 5:25 PM

"Just because you see a person walking down the street with someone, you can't tell everything there is to know about that story."

He also spilled the beans about how he keeps things h-o-t in his marriage. (Yesss!) Here's what you need to know about the way this actor lives his life:

ON BEING A FATHER (TO HIS 2-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER):

"You can't take for granted that she will just love you because you are her father. That unconditional love comes from my direction to hers. She didn't ask to be here. I chose to have her here, and so now, I'm looking to do everything I can to earn her love and to try to make her time here on this planet special."

ON FACING JUDGMENT ABOUT HIS INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE:

"I can see their perspective. It doesn't make me change my perspective. I can find beauty in any color—whether pale white or dark black. But [color] doesn't tell me what I need to know about a person. There's a reason people fixate on [race in relationships]. Something may have happened in their life that has made them think this, and they have a right to their feelings. But just because you see a person walking down the street with someone, you can't tell everything there is to know about that story."

ON SUSTAINING A SPARK:

"Now that [my wife and I] have settled down and decided to raise a family, we have to work to make time for each other, for the baby, to reconnect. It's hard with our careers to get all that done. But we took a little getaway for her birthday. When you're always in the house, everything feels routine and not so special."

ON POLITICAL BUBBLES:

"When you look back at this last year, people are going, "How did we get here?" We had a presidential candidate who was a career woman. A lot of people didn't relate to that. I'm from a small rural town in South Carolina. Not every person in this country thinks about things the way that people in larger cities do. I would like to have more people inside my bubble. I want the whole world to be the bubble. But I also need to know what's going on outside it."

AND ONE SHALLOW THOUGHT: MIKE ON HIS SHOPPING OBSESSION

"Shoes—there are so many great shoes out there! I gravitate toward Italian, a nice loafer, a nice lace-up, a wing tip. I tend to buy more shoes than I need, but I keep them forever."