A lot of times characters are combinations of people I come across in life. I people-watch a lot.

When you are portraying a person that is very real, in my case, Katherine Johnson is still alive, she is 98-years old; there is a responsibility to get it right. I guess the biggest thing that I took away from Katherine was her humility. When you talk about superheroes there are selfless, they don't think about themselves, they put humanity first.

I'm always the cousin that can't make it to the family functions because I'm busy.

I don't think about other people. They are not walking in my shoes. They are not paying my bills. What makes me happy is when I do what I like to do, for me.

Katherine Johnson never complained, it just was what it was. She just said, "I just wanted to go to work and do my numbers." And she stopped right there. I think about that as a Black woman in Hollywood when I'm asked about diversity. I hate when people say diversity because the first thing you jump to is Black and white. When you talk about diversity, you're talking about women being hired in front of and behind the camera. You are talking about people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community...so I hate when people think about diversity.

I'm constantly proving myself. I have to always prove myself. There are roles where I feel like, "That should have been a straight offer. Why am I having to call my people and fight for it?"

Katherine Johnson passion for math, the way I light up when I get asked questions about acting is the way her eyes danced when she talked about math and how she wanted people to fall in love with numbers the way that she did. If I had a teacher like that, I could have been a rocket scientist.