A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots,' and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not.

You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again.

I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.

I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.