As an adult after college and as an artist I thought about what was real, what sustained me - it was Christian Science. I was using that when I didn't know it. Saying yes to the Light and your better instinct.

And I communed with many different faiths and even when I wanted to be rebellious I never did not believe in Him. I never believed the people who said God was destructive or punishing.

Television studios bet the farm on reality shows, where they didn't need any actors and movie studios had no plans for any quality movies that required the presence of me.

I rather go to see a good play than be in one.

Americans have a hard time writing moms. I'll get a script and everything's really great and well-drawn, but the mom is like stock footage, they go and get that out. They plug it in, this idea of "mother." You could lift moms out of any script, no matter what the culture, what the neighborhood, what the economic status, and you could switch them around, and they'd be the same person. I think it's because most people don't really have a human idea, a specific life that they attach to who their mother was. Their mother was there for them, so it either gets deified, or the opposite.

I am not getting any younger and am taking a new approach to life.

When black women stick together, we are the most powerful force in the universe.