Maybe at the core of me, I'm a survivor, but I don't do it on purpose. Sometimes, in acting of course with your performance, some of your own personal character seeps through. My performance goal has always been to perform for the audience. People pay their hard earned money, and so I always desire to give all of myself in every single scene.

In my own life, there's no amount of success or money that's more important than your child being healthy and happy. There's nothing that can put a band-aid on that. There's nothing more valuable, to me, than your child.

Making African American films are hard in Hollywood. We need to rely on a support network and bring more cohesion to different filmmakers, actors, producers etc. It's a very difficult business. There aren't a lot of Africans Americans or people of color in high positions in Hollywood that we can green-light films.

I realized that what we do as professions affects how we act as people, big-time.

Sometimes I do yoga, sometimes it's kickboxing, sometimes it's weight training, sometimes it's Pilates.

No matter how you look, we all hurt the same, cry the same, and feel joy the same.

A movie is painting, it's photography, it's literature - because you have to have the screenplay - it's music. Put a different soundtrack to a comedy and it's a tragedy. A movie combines all those forms and forces you to pay attention for two hours with a group of people.