Don Cheadle is one of those actors who will go down in the film archives as one of the best. He was applauded for his acting in 2004’s Crash and received an Oscar nomination the same year for his role in Hotel Rwanda and showed his comedic side in 2007's Ocean's Thirteen, where he starred alongside Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Currently, he’s promoting his latest film The Guard, where he plays an FBI agent. In a recent interview with the New York Daily News, Cheadle lets his guard down and discusses how he turned into a Guinness man while filming the movie in Ireland and tells of the first time he visited New York City.

Reminiscencing about chilling outside of a brownstone with his best friend, he says, “We were listening to Slick Rick’s The Ruler's Back album, which had just come out that year, and he sparked one up and handed it to me.… I remember a cop drove by and I've got the joint in my hand and he looks at me and just rides on, like ‘I've got other things to worry about.'”

He even shares how he was shot at for the first time in New York while walking down a deserted street, describing the incident as great. “I heard a gun shot and the street door next to me shattered. I don't know if they were aiming for me or it was just a stray bullet. All I know is I just kept running and thinking, ‘New York is f-ing bananas.'"

Now a father of two and an advocate to end genocide in Darfur, the 46-year-old actor is also working on a film about the life of legendary jazz icon Miles Davis.