I always love to learn new things. That's the reason I like being an actor.

The muscles you flex in theater are muscles that you really need. I must always find a way to get back there. It's irreplaceable.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV.

We, as human beings, have the capacity for extreme cruelty.

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.

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

What I've learned from myself is that I don't have to be anybody else. Myself is good enough.