I'm so tired of hearing casting directors ask if I have a sore throat. The people who have told me that my voice is distinctive, it's unusual...those people have always been close to my heart.

I campaigned for [Barack] Obama for more than a year. I was in Iowa, Minnesota, California, Arizona - just traveling around to help get the word out. It was such a huge, spirited campaign, and so positive. But you travel around to cities in the U.S. now and there's just this hopelessness that has set in. It makes it hard to understand why it seems so impossible to make any kind of progressive change with an administration that is seemingly progressive, or why we keep encountering such political roadblocks to change.

I want to look good, obviously. I don't want to look at the screen and go, Oh, my skin looks terrible, or, I look exhausted. That's why I take care of myself when I work.

Do I think men are complicated? People are complicated! I don't know that there is one particular aspect of men in general that I don't understand - other than why do they have nipples? I thought we decided that men are just big, hairy apes.

I don't know if I've got swept up. It's so shocking when you hear that Calvin Klein wants you for their new campaign. You're like "who me?". I guess you have to decide where you draw the line between you saying, this is fun, pretty and fabulous, and being over-exposed.

I'm good with dialect. Some actors do it immediately; other actors never quite get it. It's something I've always really enjoyed and something I've always been pretty fast with.

Whether people are in America or in Africa, people want to work. They want to have purpose. They want to provide for themselves and their families. They don't want handouts. They don't want to be completely dependent on their governments - even though there's usually no opportunity for that anyway.