I don't think that moms, with all that's going on in our society today, would want to put their kids in front of something that will be disheartening rather than uplifting.

The older you get, you always learn more. Sometimes it's a process of learning about yourself and what your journey is. Sometimes the process moves forward at a rapid pace in a short amount of time - or moves backwards. And you're like, "Man, I thought I had made so much progress, and now all of a sudden, I'm 10 steps further behind than when I started."

Even in my music, I am always searching for big, universal things - ways that you can sort of reach outside the norm of what you are doing.

I don't ever want to be the type of person to tell you what to think or what to believe. Whatever stage in your life that you are in, I want you to organically reach whatever conclusions that you possibly reach.

As an actor, you don't become Meryl Streep by doing the same type of comedy. You get there by being challenged.

I don't have one role that I want to play. I guess... I want to be a producer. I want to be an activist. I want to be proactive in bringing about work for men, women, boys, girls, everybody who is good at what they do and deserve a shot at it.

There are enough negative images of Black women out there and I did not want to portray Dorothy Vaughn in any stereotype. I wanted to make sure that her integrity was preserved.