I work very physically as an actor. The biggest thing for me has been the challenge of how to be this person [Olivia Pope] with the personal transformation that's going on for me physically... That hasn't been easy. It's been an awesome challenge for me...because so much of how I access character is through my body.

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.

I have a deep, deep love for sneakers.

I really love research. It's one of the things I love most about my job. I feel like it's me in the lab cooking up the character.

You and you alone are the only person that can live the life that writes the story that you were meant to tell. And the world needs your story because the world needs your voice.

I don't have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life.

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.