A couple of weeks ago Terrence Howard announced that he would no longer act once the final season of Empire had wrapped. “I’m done pretending. I’m just focused on bringing truth to the world,” he said of his plan. At this past weekend’s Emmy awards, the 50-year-old explained more of his career plans to no longer pretend to be someone else and just live authentically as the person he is.

“I’ve spent 37 years pretending to be people… I think it’s time just to be Terry for a while,” he told Extra on the red carpet, as seen in the clip below. The Hustle & Flow actor detailed his upcoming book (‘One Times One Equals Two’) and plans to to promote it. “We are the only creatures in the universe that spend our day watching each other with all our great potential… I think I would like to spend the rest of my life doing something better for humanity, utilizing my brain for something other than memorizing someone’s lines,” he added.

As for when Terrence knew Empire would be over, it all came from a call from the show’s creator Lee Daniels. “Lee Daniels called me and he said, ‘How many more do you want to do?’ and I said ‘None’… He said, ‘Okay, good, ’cause we’re thinking about this being the final one,’ and I said, ‘Thank God, ’cause, my character has never had a good day.'”