I'm sorry, if you've been married for five minutes, you've sacrificed something, you've looked over at your partner and have gone, "Oh my God this is the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life." And then the next moment it's "This is the most beautiful and extraordinary human being, and I'm going to stick with it because I love them more than anyone else." That monologue to me is the universal thing, especially for women because I feel like that's the big thing with women.

To me, it's always a luxury to be able to work with the best of the best because they make it easier for you to do what you do.

I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.

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.

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.

Sometimes people come in as a director, and they just want the result, and they barely want that to tell you the truth. Sometimes directors barely talk to the actors; they are so focused on the cinematic elements of the movie, getting the shot and getting the lighting right or getting the CGI effects right and all of that, and they just trust that you are just going to do what you do.

We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.