Omar Epps has become a respected actor in Hollywood, having spent eight years as Dr. Eric Foreman on the hit Fox TV series “House, MD” and performed in nearly three dozen other films and TV shows since breaking out as one of the stars in the 1992 film “Juice.”

“Growing up, I only knew two guys who knew their dads, and it’s not supposed to be that way.”

He has also been happily married for 12 years to wife Keisha, and is the father of three children. Now Epps, 42, who grew up fatherless in Brooklyn, is trying to inspire other men to be devoted fathers, teaming up with fellow veteran actor Malik Yoba (“New York Undercover,” “Empire”) as the executive producers of the powerful documentary, “Daddy Don’t Go.”

The film follows the lives of four young fathers in the Bronx as they struggle to navigate parenthood, even as they struggle against both daily economic difficulties and a lack of support from their social circles, which often perpetuates the cycle of fatherlessness.

Directed by veteran documentarian Emily Abt, who spent two years with her subjects to fully gain their trust and intimately present their lives, “Daddy Don’t Go” will be available for on-demand viewing starting on Sunday, Father’s Day, on Vimeo.

LifeZette talked with Epps about his experiences.

Question: What do you hope to achieve with “Daddy Don’t Go?”
Answer: I grew up without a father, so I have a strong connection to the issue. In terms of putting the documentary together, the timing  of it is very relevant now. In impoverished areas, whether urban or rural, fatherlessness is almost pandemic. Growing up, I only knew two guys who knew their dads, and it’s not supposed to be that way.

What’s exciting to me about the documentary is we’re following these four young men who are blue-collar, not doctors or lawyers, so it’s brass tacks what they’re working with. They’re underprivileged guys who are struggling to survive, but they’re all fighting to be good fathers, so to me they’re heroes in that regard. In the media, we’re inundated with the image of the fatherless boy or girl, and here we have these guys, and there’s a lot of guys like these guys who are doing the right thing, and I wanted to shine a light in an area that doesn’t get it a lot. And I wanted to inspire people.

Question: You have a long-term marriage with three kids. How did you resolve to do better and beat the cycle?
Answer: Growing up without a father, it was a goal of mine that when the day came, I would break the cycle at least with my immediate bloodline. And there’s that, but there’s also the connection I have because I have three children and I was the first person to touch them on Earth as they were born. There’s that connection and I can’t even fathom anything being differently than how it is now.

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I didn’t need to grow up without a father to feel that, but obviously my experience played into my becoming a father and maintaining that, because once you’re a parent, you’re a parent forever — even after they grow up and have their own kids. It’s the cycle of life, we’re male and female and reproduce and bring children into the world. There are a lot of factors that come into play, social and economic issues, and it’s easier to repeat the cycle than to break it. Hopefully this film can be a game-changer or at least a catalyst for things to shift in a different direction.

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Question: How did you pick the young men?
Answer:  Emily [Abt] picked them.  She’s done a lot of docs and she had this idea for this film and she reached out to a few different grassroots organizations to find young men who may have been in a little trouble with the law, but given the right tools could turn it around. It was in the Bronx that all of these young men were a part of, and she had to find those traits that you could build a story on the characteristics of this person, and we’re fortunate she did that well.

Question: What do you feel are the solutions? How do we turn this around on a big scale?
Answer: That’s a very loaded question, because I don’t think there’s one solution. It’s a very layered problem. There are many different levels but it all starts with the man in the mirror — men who have children take responsibilities for their fatherly duties. It’s not just cutting a check but being present. That’s the root of what we’re trying to strike with “Daddy Don’t Go.”  These young men have all sorts of possible excuses to get out of their kids’ lives, but they are there for them. So they are heroes.