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

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.

Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.

I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.

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.