That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.

I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

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 like to wear things, I don't like things to wear me.

I remember in my very first fitting, costume designer Patricia Norris gave me a garment with these intricate stitches - stitches over stitches, because it had been repaired so many times. Once I put it on, she told me that it belonged to an actual slave woman. My heart just stopped. Each one of the stitches had a story, you know. Just recognizing this period I was going to be dancing with was a "come to Jesus" moment.

Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.

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