It's easy to spend - especially in this day and age - to spend your time not being in the present. It's very easy to be way ahead. What's tomorrow and the day after that?

I played Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music and everybody's like, "Well she wouldn't have been this and that, she shouldn't be playing it." Well I'm going to do it and I did it. I've been warned my entire life and I've persisted and that's what I hope my children will do as well.

Some sort of creativity is within everybody; I think that's just a part of the human spirit. I think there's no human being on earth who is not creative in some way, because I think it's just a part of our genetic makeup.

Rise above the way society is going to see you and society is going to see you at the absolutely bottom of the totem pole because not only are you female, you are Black. Never believe it and never give into that, that that's where you live or that's who you are.

The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience's ears. It's not the typical Southern dialect that we're used to.

I think for a lot of people that are in performing arts, it's easy to fall into the trap of starting to confuse what's real life and what's not, because to your body it's all real.

Every human being has a dream. I think what's special about the American Dream is that it implies, given everything that's happened with the history of America, that there is the opportunity to make your dream come true. So I think America signifies opportunity.