We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there.

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 think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.

I really want my acting to be definitive a lot of times, but I must feel like in any given moment there is a lot of things going on with Rose. I kept telling Denzel [Washington] throughout filming [Fences] that the house is her joy and her tomb.

All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.

I've done a really bad job with teaching daughter to put on makeup, but I have taught her how to put on lipstick.