When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life.

Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.

I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.

I think that enjoying the fruits of one's labor is very different than arrogance. And when I was younger, I didn't know the difference. I thought that if you were gracious, that meant that you somehow were getting ahead of yourself. And I felt self-deprecation kept you balanced.

When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life.

People call me a theater actor, but I'm just an actor. But I tell my friends all the time - especially a lot that do theater and haven't done a lot of TV/film - that you have so much more control over your work onstage. When you go onstage, you can really see the difference between people who can really do it, and people who are just kind of pretending to do it. There is no editor, there's nothing that's going to stop the actor from showing what they can do unless it's not a well-written role.

You have to understand being an actress, and being an African American actress of a certain hue, I think that you have to be bold with your choices. Even when you're not bold with your choices, have people see it as bold.