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.

Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.

Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.

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.

My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important.

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

I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.