As actors, you become an expert at starting over.

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.

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

When I was in the second grade, one of my teachers said, "Where are you going to find a husband? How are you going to find someone darker than you?" I was mortified. I remember seeing a commercial where a woman goes for an interview and doesn't get the job. Then she puts a cream on her face to lighten her skin, and she gets the job! This is the message: that dark skin is unacceptable. I definitely wasn't hearing this from my immediate family - my mother never said anything to that effect - but the voices from the television are usually much louder than the voices of your parents.

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.

Being called gorgeous is not a bad thing! But at the same time, I don’t want to thrive on people’s opinions of me.