You always make a film with the hope that all types of people will want to see your work and that it doesn't matter about your color, but unfortunately it still does.

Especially in this industry, women challenge men much more now because we're saying, 'We can do it, too.'

We play different people - our art form is performance art - so unless you're playing the same type of person, I don't know if you could improve or make it worse.

I create my own backstory regardless of if I'm told something about the background or not. There's always more that you can develop in your head that makes a character more layered, more honest.

When you look at "American Crime" and you have the character Terri LaCroix is a pharmaceutical executive - why does that character always have to be white?

I never really loved school through junior high, but then I started running track my freshman year, and I was just like, 'Wow, this is cool!

"Southland" was not written for a black woman.