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.

Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it's filet mignon.

I have to say, doing theater, that's what you're trained to do. Doing film, when I first started doing it, felt like something else entirely. It felt like the difference between, I don't know, waiting tables and painting a great work of art. It's night and day. I didn't feel like it was even acting.

I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out.

I think that what happens so often on screen is high-stake moments tends to look too pretty. And I just don't think it's honest.

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.

That is a huge need for a lot of women, even in 2016. You can have the most ambitious career woman, and at the end of the day, she's like, 'I just want to be a mom.