I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.

I am not a writer, but I feel that when our production company is successful, we'll be able to give some young writers with fresh voices an opportunity to put their work out there.

I get so excited when my daughter says something new, which she is doing every day. I can leave the house for a few hours, come back and meet a totally different person. That's very exciting to me.

I always say that, like a scientist or anyone, you always want to be the problem-solver. You feel like, if you solve the greatest mystery or the greatest problem, then that makes you brilliant. It's the same thing with an actress. You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny and all the things that a person could be.

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can't seem to get there no how. I can't seem to get over that line.

The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, "You change the school, you change the community." I couldn't wrap my mind around that.

I have a lot of spiritual books that I read that I really, really love - everything from the Bible to Joseph Campbell, who I love. He wrote The Hero of a Thousand Faces. It's about exploring what is heroic in you. It helps me a lot.