Black community, I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.

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.

My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don't know why I wouldn't seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn't I go to a shrink?

I think most people, when they think about the Black Panther Party, they think in very abstract, caricatured terms. They think about black fists in the air, but they don't think about the actual people, and the families, and the relationships.

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.

I'm here not just as an actress but as a woman, an African-American, a granddaughter of Ellis Island immigrants, a person who could not have afforded college without the help of student loans and as one of millions of volunteers working to re-elect President Obama!

I wouldn't just come home from school and watch TV everyday, they had me involved in lots of local theatre. I was a very dramatic, talkative child. And that was part of my mother's creative solution - to put me in workshops and classes and children's theatre programmes.