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.

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

What's becoming very obvious to me is that fashion is art.

Your value is in yourself; the other stuff will come and go.

There's always a sense of newness with acting, because every role, you come to every role fresh.

You can’t eat beauty. It doesn’t feed you.

There is no shame in black beauty.