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 come from a loving, supportive family, and my mother taught me that there are more valuable ways to achieve beauty than just through your external features. She was focused on compassion and respect, and those are the things that ended up translating to me as beauty.

What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.

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.

There is no shame in black beauty.

I love color. I'm enjoying trying all different shades. Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.

I never, in my wildest dreams, could I have thought that the first role I get out of school would lead to an Oscar nomination.