I feel like I barely survived Django (Unchained) emotionally - the violence, hearing the N-word every day. It cost me a lot psychologically, but it was worth it to tell that story.

I didn't grow up thinking I was pretty; there was always a prettier girl than me. So I learned to be smart and tried to be funny and develop the inside of me, because I felt like that's what I had.

It's exciting to me that people know that I'm someone who's very political.

Sometimes, when we're feeling challenged in life, we feel a pull to isolate, and for me part of the joy of being a wife, a mother, and in a cast of friends is allowing myself to be in spaces of love. So being open to that love.

We don’t come out of the womb filled with prejudice, racism, and homophobia. Kids are taught to hate, so we have to protect our young people’s minds from those evils.

I'd figure out ways to use role-playing in the healing of people.

I grew up in New York, so I fell in love with acting on a stage, not in front of a camera.