Hollywood needs more women directors, and Mama Ava needs a carafe and a half of that sweet vino divino.

I always find it fascinating to ask people, why they've chosen to live their life as an artist? Why be an actor, a singer, an author, a filmmaker? I've heard such inspiring answers to that question.

When I look in the mirror, I see a woman who is happy.

Film school was a privilege I could not afford.

I'm a huge Dirty Dancing fan. I feel like I should be reading [William] Shakespeare, but I'm watching Baby not be in a corner.

We [Americans] know Martin Luther King Jr. as a statue. We know him as a holiday. We know him as a speech. We don't know him as a man. Most people don't even know the whole speech, just "I have a dream." They don't know what his speaking voice was like, how he looked at his wife, or that he had four kids.

As long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive.