When I allow myself to feel all my feelings instead of numbing myself to them, they pass more quickly. I spent my entire life telling everyone I was "OK, damn it." But when you surrender to the [uncomfortable] feelings, there are gifts on the other side: Allowing yourself to feel loneliness forces you to reach out. Letting yourself get angry gives you strength, energy and motivation.

More often than what you're suggesting, I find people are surprised that I have an urban side to me.

When I accept a role, I feel that as an artist I have to submit completely to the tutelage of my director. And while I expect to be heard and encouraged and honored, at the end of the day, man, it's the way the director wants it.

The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.

It's unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries.

A wonderful pastor I know once told me, "Perfectionism is the highest order of self-abuse." So now I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself. Period.

When we were growing up, we were so poor that our heritage was the only thing we had. Mama would say, 'Kids, pour more water in the soup. Better days are coming.'