I love working with new directors. There's so much drive and effort. It still comes down to the character for me, but if it's a character I really want to play, I would never not do the project because of a new director.

I hated high school and got to college and realized they didn't care if I showed up because I'd already paid. So I decided, 'I'm going to turn this around.' And I did: I got straight A's and was named 'outstanding senior.

Personally, I am a church-going Christian. I love my church, my congregation; it's my favorite place to be.

In the women's movement, women needed men to stand up and say, 'This isn't right.' In the civil rights of the '60s, it took people of all color to demand equal rights.

My whole goal was to be able to work in television and film and maintain a normal life, never be in a tabloid.

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.

I started out as a writer. Poetry and prose and also kind of satirical David Sedaris-esque stuff.