I feel that our stories are cross culturally irrelevant, and I'm a member if a larger community of people who have no boundaries in terms of color or in terms of how I look at other people and their stories.

I practice yoga every day. The practice calms my spirit, and allows me to be present.

I'm not someone who is a fan of a lot of violence.

Many times - especially when I'm playing an historical character - I want to be really on target with how I create that character and really nuanced with who that human being might be. But I don't want to lose the likeness of me or the depth of my own personality. So meditation and my spirituality has helped me to realize that, yes, I want to get out of the way but I also want the ability to hold on to what the audience likes of what they see of me.

I know from teaching, that actors want to act. Even the subtlest actors can do a little too much.

My rule is simply "love what you do". That certainly has brought me to the place I where am at right now. It really has been with the work.

There's such a grace and understanding in the female persona when women have really come into their own. Part of that is to have children, and to be caring for those children, and not only in the care for them, but also in the nurturing and raising of them, they have to pass on their souls and their intelligence. And all those things can't be taught. It's something that, that in the essence of a woman, the essence of a mother, a mother knows!