Yes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary. You'll have Julia Roberts, you'll have Robert Redford, you'll have Russell Crowe doing those films, because if they're going to cost $90 million, they're going to make that movie for a public that's very large and mainstream. They're not going to make it for three or four million black people.

My passion is to tell stories that reflect humanity.

I don't want to be an actress, because I think that they have to be really pretty, and I'm not.

My people were homesteading in Colorado before Emancipation.

As I get older, it's a time to enjoy life.

I've never considered myself to be beautiful, and I still don't.

I want to direct and work with the youngins and the fabulous actors of today.