Because sometimes listening to something will connect to a feeling, it will allow you to emote subconsciously, and you don't even understand why you're in it.

The danger in having modern music tied to a period piece is that hearing something may take you out of the moment.

The introduction of Harriet Tubman is going to be very exciting, she's a real life superhero so for us to be able to feature her this season is groundbreaking for a television series.

People talk about Jim Crow as if it's dead. Jim Crow isn't gone. It's adjusted. Look at the disproportionate sentences meted out to blacks caught up in the criminal justice system. There's a problem when people profit from putting and keeping African Americans in prison. We need to do a better job as a nation understanding the real values the country's built upon in terms of fairness, equality and equal opportunity.

My mom experienced racism. She was harassed by the KKK several times. And I experienced racism myself, growing up. In New Jersey, we had trash thrown on our lawn every day. And we had the lines to our Christmas lights cut three years in a row. We just stopped putting up Christmas lights after that. That's probably why I still don't put up any lights during the holidays.

Regardless of the project, whenever you're working on something, the best you can hope for is to be around good people.

With any good projects, I feel like the off-screen chemistry factors on-screen. It's great when you don't have to force it, but when it's not there you better focus on getting there, because as we live with these characters we spend more time with one another than we do our families at home.