Education opens the door to everything in terms of having a career and an impact on society and not being a slave to your job, really.

Only do acting, if you don't want to do anything else. And know that it's a tough journey with a lot of rejection along the way. You have to have a lot of self-belief.

It is great to be a part of big-budget movies, but it is harder to feel like you are contributing, in the sense that it has such big machinery behind it.

I never make suggestions. I really don't. I know a lot of actors who get a part and then they dissect it and they want to change it and they want to add stuff. I'm always amazed and so impressed by actors who do that.

I wanted to play roles which offered new ways of viewing black women and black people in general- and I have done that. And I have always, whether I needed to pay the rent or not, I've always turned down roles which I thought were stereotypical. And so when I look at my body of work in that respect, I am really happy. Because I feel my work does say something positive and that was what I always set out to do.

As an artist, I am interested in telling stories that haven't been told before, stories that are going to affect people, and also stories that shine light on areas of history that haven't had light shined on them before.

One of the saddest aspects for me about filming in South Africa was that the real inequalities are still very much in place - and those are economic inequalities.