I felt validated and valued , and here was this woman [Whoopi Goldberg ] inside my television screen who gave me a voice.

I had praying grandmothers who bathed me in "The Word" and filled the atmosphere with worship. Though I developed my own personal spiritual relationship later in life, the foundation they laid is what my faith was built upon.

Very early on in this process though I studied acting in high school and college, soon after graduation, I walked away from the craft because I wanted to know that this is what I was supposed to do with my life.

I did my homework, of course, by inhaling as much literature as was available to find, so that when it was time to shoot I could hopefully exhale [ Harriet Tubman ].

[Harriet Tubman] is a legend, an icon, a soldier on the side of justice, a spiritual warrior, and a servant of God, as well as the one of the baddest women to literally ever walk the land. I surrendered to her spirit.

One of the first memories I have was watching Whoopi Goldberg perform her one-woman show on Broadway on HBO. She moved seamlessly through an array of spirited and soul-stirring characters, each one holding a mirror up to me and allowing me in many ways to see a reflection of myself on screen.

There will be a wealth of facts revealed and revisited in [Underground] pertaining to Harriet Tubman. That is a huge part of my excitement, the fact that this generation will get such a beautifully-detailed introduction to a hero and icon that has largely lived in a few pages of our history books and in one-dimensional photographs.