I have very high expectations of myself. I'm a very competitive person but competitive with myself. I want to be the best that I can be and if that means that I'm eventually better than everyone else then so be it.

A racial community provides not only a sense of identity, that luxury of looking into another's face and seeing yourself reflected back, but a sense of security and support.

You develop a lot of scars, being interracial.

When I got to college, acting suddenly seemed like a very risky proposition and all my friends were going to law school or med school or Wall Street.

Four months of preparation and about 12 hours of shooting turned into about 30 seconds of screen time.

It was just expected that I would go to college. Both my parents are teachers and they tolerated acting, but I was going to go to a school of quality or bust. Which made my downshifting back to acting afterward a little difficult.

You might look at my CV and see I've had 12 jobs, but I've been to over 450 auditions so I've heard 'no' a lot more than I've heard 'yes'. So if I go in looking only to meet my own standards, then that will make taking that rejection a little bit easier. And when I do get that job it will seem like icing on the cake.