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 think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.

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

People often forget our emotional contribution to relationships and to marriage and that might be a completely sexist comment but, what I tried not to do [in "Fences"] is, I tried to just put that monologue as part of my stream of consciousness.

When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way. Uta Hagen said this, "In my life, I see myself as just this, you know, kind of flamboyant, kind of sexy middle-aged woman. And then I see myself onscreen, and I go 'Oh my God.'" And it's the same thing with me. I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't!

I can't speak for the Kathryn Stockett, but I would guess that she feels proud of the progress the South has made because, growing up, she experienced a very different Mississippi than the one that exists today.

We're in crisis mode as black actresses. It's not only in the sheer number of roles that are offered and that are out there, but the quality of the roles. The quality - and therein lies the problem. We're in deprivation mode because me, Alfre and Phylicia, we're in the same category. Whereas if you take a Caucasian actress, you have the one who are the teens, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - they're all different. There are roles for each of them. But you only have two or three categories for black actresses.