I did an internship at the Ardent theatre company in Philly after dropping out of college. I was earning $165 a week building sets and cleaning the toilets. Cleaning toilets is a good way of getting in touch with your creativity. That's when you find out if you got anything going on in your head.

I am a woman, I make mistakes. I make them often. God has given me a talent and that`s it.

Balancing is hard. I've lost roles that I really wanted because I had set up a tour. I cancelled tours to do roles before. But I have to find the time to make that up to my audience. I made a commitment to them.

I like to be in the now, now. Sometimes musicians have to wait for me to be genuine with it. As an actor, I don't have that luxury. You have to make it legit when they say 'action.'

One of the things I love about Africa is the amount of dignity and respect and humility you see all the time. You don't realise how often you're disrespected until you are surrounded by respect.

I'm a world-class people watcher. I like to watch people's body movements, their expressions. It says so much about them.

'True Blood' excites me. It scares me, but it excites me.