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.

Learn to embrace your own unique beauty, celebrate your unique gifts with confidence. Your imperfections are actually a gift.

You can never control how people respond to your work. You can only control your own work ethic.

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.

That's what acting is - it's about having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.

I just want [my daughter Isabelle] to know that she's heard. Really heard, because I feel like that is what we all really want. When I think about any of the missteps in my life that I've made, all of which I'm grateful for, it's because I just so wanted to be truly seen and heard for who I am and was afraid I wasn't or wouldn't be. I see you, I hear you, I'm with you as you are.

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.