And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned.

I grew up in Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya, so it's hustle and bustle, and there's always something going on.

[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point.

There's always a sense of newness with acting, because every role, you come to every role fresh.

You can't eat beauty, it doesn't sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion, for yourself and those around you. That kind of beauty inflamed the heart and merchants the soul.

I would love to have a career that's governed by the material; I always want to be part of stories that I feel are worthwhile.

I don't think I will ever be able to really articulate how bizarre it was to hear my name at the Academy Awards. I'd watched in my pajamas the year before! I felt numb - dazed and confused. I remember feeling light - weightless. More like limbo than cloud nine. At first I was like, This is my statue; nobody gets to touch it. And by midnight I was like, Please, someone, take this statue; it's too heavy! So I gave it to my brother, and he went off with it.