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.

I don't why I was bullied. I was quite shy and skinny. Very nerdy, very bookwormish. I think I was just a target.

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.

You don't want to just preach to people; you want to get them emotionally involved, and I think you do that with a wonderful human story about one person's struggle.

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.

In some ways, except that in that movie [Skyfall] I was mostly screaming and running away from the bad guys, whereas in this one I'm generally jumping into the action and fighting with them. So, yeah, it was somewhat similar, but also very different.

I'm afraid that what most people don't know about me is that I'm very close to my brother and sister, who are 16 and 13, and I think I'm a pretty good big sister to them.