Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.

I would like to say something deeper, but for me, I saw a production of "Fences" in Rhode Island and a fabulous actress played Rose, but when she first came on the stage she was mad. You could just see it. She was all, "Troy stop!" So by the time you get to the revelation scene, I didn't think she loved him, so there was no loss. I think that the real tragedy and the real drama or the thing that makes you lean in is to see the love, to see the commitment. To see the fact that Rose is invested in this marriage no matter what.

[Denzel Washington] was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I'm in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don't understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal.

I had to invest in the love and understand that with the love comes the pain. So when he tells me that, the monologue is already there. Does that make sense?

You don't get the pay-off when you're playing a quiet character, so sometimes you want to just throw out all your work and say, "Okay, let me do something really funny or gimmicky, just so that I can get some attention in this scene."

I am the mother of a 6-year-old now, so that's changed my entire perspective.

Just because I was 30 doesn't mean I was grown. God, I was such an idiot. I was an absolute idiot at 30. And I grew up.