Even in my dreams of being an actor, my dream was not in the celebrity. My dream was in the work that I wanted to do.

I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying we don't have work for black women. But right now I don't know what's next. I hope that there are more opportunities to come my way.

I loved duping my parents; I liked manipulating them. It was a way for me to stand out. It was fun.

It's so much more fun to do the work than to talk about it. I will have to admit that. Everybody gets to decide how they feel, and what to take away by themselves, and that's what you hope for. That people will take away different things and have different experiences from the work we do as actors. So I don't like to prescribe how to feel about the work I do.

I think it's a real gift to be faced with man's potential for extreme cruelty but also man's resilience and the fact that love really does conquer everything. It's the only answer to these kinds of atrocities and it's not a passive thing.

I grew up watching foreign programs - American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.

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