I always hope for the better for the continent and what I know comes from Africa. Living in the West we feel like we're so removed from the continent that we can somewhat shut off.

The first time you see the film it takes you right back to those times and those moments. It's very difficult to be objective about the work because you really have to remove yourself and see it a couple of times before you can really involve yourself in the story.

I was just a very torn child, very wounded in so many areas, with no family support. I happened to the be the fifth child of my family. So everybody was already grown and had left home already.

I always hope for the better for the continent and what I know comes from Africa. Living in the West we feel like we're so removed from the continent that we can somewhat shut off.

School bored me. Being educated and being intelligent are two different things. I thought I was smart enough. And I wanted to be an entertainer. I stopped going to school as a way of saying I was mature, a way of saying I was going to choose who I was going to become.

America has this understanding of Africans that plays like National Geographic: a bunch of Negroes with loincloths running around the plain fields of Africa chasing gazelles.

I am happy, and I have many reasons to be extra-happy nowadays. Life is calm, and the career is good and taking its course. And things are moving, things are moving ahead.