You often hear the Cinderella (or Cinderfella) stories of Hollywood – the ways an actor has struggled through tough times and relative obscurity, even though it seems as though they work harder than anyone else.

In the case of Terrence Howard, the glass slipper came in the form of two very different movie releases in 2005 – Hustle & Flow and Crash. Three years later, he’s come even further with a strong supporting role in the amazing film Iron Man.

Terrence has always talked frankly about his musical influences, eclectic tastes and dedication to his craft – so much so that he’s often criticized for being too unique. He’s also been linked romantically to many ladies, then called a woman-hater after giving some of his opinions on women in the press.

How has he accepted his mainstream fame after being a best-kept-secret for so long? How does he handle personal criticism in the midst of his success? How does he stay focused in the whirlwind that his life has become? We took a slow drag of quiet time with the ever-busy actor/musician/producer to find out why he’s really built for this.   

AllHipHop.com: How do you feel about being part of such an epic movement [with Iron Man]?

Terrence Howard: After so many years of being part of so many smaller films, you like the smaller films because there's a lot of creative freedom involved, but there's no fiduciary rewards or reaping from those films. Hustle & Flow has benefitted me down the line because it's allowed me to do other movies, but I have not stopped working since then. I haven't been able to really take a break or vacation. I picture people like Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman or even Denzel [Washington] being able to disappear for four or five months.

I've had to work continually. So a film like this gives me a financial base and hopefully if we do a sequel, knowing that next year I will still make X amount of dollars because we have this next film locked. That frees me up to do independent films if I want, but also frees me up to take a vacation and enjoy the movie star life that I keep hearing so much about and still have never been able to experience.

AllHipHop.com: Are your kids pretty stoked that you're in Iron Man?

Terrence Howard: Yeah, but they don't express it like that. They keep it real tight-mouthed about it. I'm still their daddy. They're still wondering whether I'm gonna be mad at them for their report card or for them going in my stuff or something that they weren't supposed to do. They enjoy the privileges, but they've always seen the privileges that I have. If I have to steal I'll make sure they have the things that they need. They're stoked, but I don't see them expressing it outwardly.

"I don't mind being considered eccentric, but sometimes within the Hip-Hop or Black community, eccentric is oftentimes associated with being gay or something like that. I'm a hell of an individual."

AllHipHop.com: Your character Rhodey is more of a straight man to Tony Stark's eccentric personality, but in real life you've actually been called eccentric quite a bit. How does it feel for you to be considered eccentric, and do you embrace that?

Terrence Howard: I don't mind being considered eccentric, but sometimes within the Hip-Hop or Black community, eccentric is oftentimes associated with being gay or something like that. I'm a hell of an individual. I got suspended about 15 times a year growing up for insubordination. I wish it had been for being eccentric, but I think eccentric is seeing life for yourself and being willing to express and experience it for yourself. But we are so used to conformity that any time someone steps outside the normal box we label them as weird or different.

I remember when I first heard online that Will Smith was gay, I was like, "Oh…that's possible, I guess." But then when I read online that I was gay, I was like, "Oh, who the hell came up with that?" The eccentricity of being an individual is always gonna make you separate from the rest of everybody else, and you have to be okay with that. But I set out to see the world through my own eyes, experience it and taste the world for myself, instead of having someone else tell me this is what the world tastes like.

I want to know, I need to know just for my own sake of being me at the end of the day. I'm kind of glad I'm eccentric if that is what I am. I just think I'm human. I think I'm an individual human like anybody else.

AllHipHop.com: The Hip-Hop community values struggle. You worked for 12 years before somebody said, "Wow that guy's a great actor" in mainstream America.

Terrence Howard: Really it was 20 years. I was 36 years old when Hustle & Flow kind of hit the world and I had been acting since I was about 16 years old, so 20 years inside of a profession normally you would receive some type of pension from it. But the pension becomes the fan recognition, the respect from peers.

To get a phone call from Denzel saying, "I saw the movie, you did a damn good job" - that in itself is the reaping of all the struggle and hard work, and that's the best thing an actor can hope to gain. Hopefully the monetary side will balance and match itself. I used to think that being a Hip-Hop artist or singer would be the most important thing in somebody's life and pay them more than anything else. Every singer wants to be an actor, because an actor really makes the money.

AllHipHop.com: When filming Get Rich Or Die Trying with 50 Cent, you [talked] about what you were learning from him. I'm sure he broke a lot of things down about that too.

Terrence Howard: [nods] It's the business side of it. You'll make more money from advances than you will in sales, so you gotta make sure that the propaganda is greater than the reality, and that you can follow up the reality with even greater propaganda. It's a talking game, it's not really a musician's game. In me making my own album, I made an album just for me to hear and if somebody else falls into it then that's wonderful.

But I was told from the start, do not think that you're going to get rich and retire off of an album or a number of albums. That's for the very lucky and few, like Celine Dion - 200 million copies of her albums sold, she can retire off of that.  I don't know anybody else that's sold 200 million copies of an album. That's the very few and far between.

AllHipHop.com: You mentioned before that when you did the church scene in Hustle & Flow that it was actually you - you just felt the moment and it wasn't acting. In doing a movie like Iron Man where you got to do a lot of improv, were there any moments where you just came out?

Terrence Howard: There's times when me and Robert [Downey Jr.] are talking on the plane - all of that is just kind of improve, literally. He just runs through everything… it doesn't matter, any casualties just happen. I didn't know we were rolling, and I said to him, "You know what? If you need your diaper changed just let me know. I'm your babysitter, I'll change your diaper" - so that was me.

AllHipHop.com: Do you have any special meditations or techniques you practice before you get into a role?

Terrence Howard: Nah, I just try to immerse myself with enough information about the character that I possibly can and associate with the people that the character would be around because that's who he's gonna be influenced by. We imitate those that are around us, so I spend as little time as possible in the mirror, because the mirror's always gonna remind me of who I am.

I don't really talk to my kids too much or to my family when I'm becoming somebody else, because sometimes these monsters are completely different and your children aren't safe around certain monsters. The love of your children is going to prevent you from climbing that next tier into absolute bestial nature, and some of these characters are like that. But I isolate myself - it's a great deal of isolation for a while, hard on relationships.

Girlfriends have a hard time understanding that I'm gonna be gone for the next two months. I may not call you. It doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about you, but I won't be able to call you for the next couple of months because I won't exist. When I come out hopefully everything is fine. I have yet to find a woman that's still there when I get back.

AllHipHop.com: You've had a variety of roles from the comedic edge to the very dramatic, but you were kind of stuck with the bad boy image for a little while. Did you feel like you had to break out of that?

Terrence Howard: Well, I knew I would never be able to break out of that because the bad boy image was rebellious. The rebellion, the anarchist so to speak, that is me. So I'll never fully be able to escape from it, but what I kept constantly trying to bring to it is the other human qualities, characteristics, mannerisms, sensibility, vulnerability which has been lost on the cutting room floor, or often times in the rehearsal hall, the actors never bring that, which has brought me out of it because I've been seen as human.

I don't remember the last time I was picked to do a bad boy character. I was actually thinking the other night after watching American Gangster, I said, "You know what, it may be time for me to jump back into the monster." I called my agent and I was like, "You know, let's find something a little more grimy. Let's get back into the grimy world and take another spin around that block."

AllHipHop.com: How much value do you place on your involvement in the more historical movies like Pride, Boycott, King Of The World where you played Muhammad Ali… and now you're [possibly] doing the Thurgood Marshall role [in The Crusaders]. How much do you put on that in educating not just the African-American community, but America at large about these people that really changed history.

Terrence Howard: Well those are the most frightening ones because they carry the most weight with them. The magnitude that you bring to a character like that, oftentimes the individual isn't as well known as you have come to know him. You have the responsibility and become a part of that individual's legacy. If you do not approach it with the greatest reverence, knowing that this may be the last time that anyone hears of this person or sees them alive, you lend your spirit to them [so] you better make sure you know what you're doing. You gotta know that you're going to affect the rest of their life forever.

They're talking about doing [a] Richard Pryor [movie] now and there's a lot of talk about whether I want to be a part of that. I'm scared to death to step into that because there's so much about Richard that has to be told well. It cannot be glazed over, and I have to take on the tenacity of Richard and the demons also that plagued him that ultimately led to his death. Sometimes you don't want to get caught up in there, but sometimes you can't help but get caught in that hurricane of activity.

AllHipHop.com: Aside from your recent role on Broadway and Iron Man, any last words on things that you're working on?

Terrence Howard: I produced, arranged and wrote my album with my producing partner who is my bass player Miles Mosley. It's called Shine Through and it comes out in September, me and the Band of Kings.

Click here to read the AllHipHop.com Iron Man review