One of my favorite - well, my favorite, favorite, absolute favorite event to go to is Alfre Woodard has a party that I call the blacktress party. It's, like, black actresses that either have been nominated for an Oscar or should have been, and it sort of is just a night where we all get in a room and we get to celebrate each other.

MYOB - mind your own body. It's important because I don't happen to have the kind of body that we usually see on television and in films. I am plus-size. I have dark skin. And I am 100 percent beautiful. But I get a lot of flak - oh, you should lose weight. And now that I have lost weight - and I lost weight for health reasons - I get, you look good but don't lose too much weight because your face is starting to sink in.

I complain about my life. I used to complain about boys or not being able to drive or failing a test. Now I complain about boys, not being able to drive, and leaving home so much.

Most of my life, I wanted to be a therapist, but then I just decided that I didn't want to be in charge of giving people advice. I want to know everything there is to know about psychology. But a therapist? No.

It's like prom night for Hollywood. I'm really proud of myself for being here.

I've grown up with girls that are like Precious. I've grown up with people that are like everyone that I read about in that book. And so years later, when I was given the role, I just felt a huge responsibility to show the reality of that situation and to show that we're not making it up.

I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don't like myself, there's no reason to even live the life.