Of course you want to do all the research that you can, but it's impossible to take a life and the boundaries of an hour and a half, so there is hope there will be understanding about that also.

Loving God is like my being black. I just am. [No one says] 'You know what? I'm gonna be blacker today!' It's my culture. It's not something I put on or take off or show more. You just communicate that in the way you live your life.

In feature film world I'm very much...a hired hand. It's a world of Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson - they're able to produce and to star and it's, that's not my world.

This is a career about images. It's celluloid; they last for ever. I'm a black woman from America. My people were slaves in America, and even though we're free on paper and in law, I'm not going to allow you to enslave me on film, in celluloid, for all to see.

I am content that the work that I've done is wonderful.

The three things I said when I came out of school were I want to work consistently, I want to do good work and I want to be paid fairly, and that's happened. But I didn't become an actress for the money. I do it for other reasons.

Theater's my first love. I love it. It excites me. It feeds me.