In my culture, my mother's sisters are also my mother. And my father's sisters are my mother's, too. So I have many mothers. My mom has a fierce love for her children. And she's known to say things like if you die I'll kill you.

I had to work from a young age.

I want a body of work; I want a good story after a good story.

If I can look at each character that I am given and create them in a different way from the last role, I'm happy.

I take things very seriously, and I give myself time to come down and to ramp up, and it's an inside spiritual journey for me. I feel like acting is a way of feeling your personality, and it's really special. Special to have this kind of effect on people. You can only have that effect if you're really outside of yourself. You can't look at yourself and do what I do at the same time. I have done it that way in the past, but it doesn't really work. I can only soar within the parameters of time, and I use music analogies.

I never like to refer back to anything I've done when I'm working on a character, even if that character has the same occupation.

I just want to serve up the goodness and grace that's been given to me because I made a choice that lined up with my passion. And that's what I tell my kids.