I really prefer the actual experience of being onstage and living the character from beginning to end with the energy of the audience. There's nothing that beats that feeling, and yet I really have trouble with the eight shows a week.

I don't know if it's more acceptable or if black men are more comfortable. Black men certainly are more comfortable with it. I don't know that society, like white society loves it or black women. When you see a black man with a white woman there is a feeling that you have and I think the feeling is an instinctual feeling of you want her you don't want me. I don't look anything like her, so you don't like. You know what I mean? Something like that. It's a real instinctual primal thing.

I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.

It was a good script [Something New]. We have not seen an interracial issue dealt with from a black woman and white man's perspective in this way. And, usually, it's a black man, white woman. I loved the fact that it wasn't about the couple being against the world or the couple against the family. I loved the fact that it was her dealing with her own prejudices that came up, her own guilt, her own shame and embarrassment about what her peers thought.

People are going to always have their opinions whether you date a black man or not. I've had girlfriends, family members comment on black men that I've dated as well as white people. People want to see what they want to see. And if anybody doesn't fit that picture they're going to be like, 'Yeah, I didn't see you with him.'

I really prefer the actual experience of being onstage and living the character from beginning to end with the energy of the audience. There's nothing that beats that feeling, and yet I really have trouble with the eight shows a week.

Sometimes when you don't care, people are attracted to that.