There's so much we can't express in our day-to-day interaction with people because it's considered inappropriate. And acting is all about being inappropriate.

I want to aspire to something like what Denzel Washington does, which is try to find scripts written for white actors - or Jodie Foster, who reads scripts for male actors.

There was no script, but I said, 'I'm in, regardless' and was committed to Legends before I saw a single page.It was a lovely surprise to find so much meat on the bone.

My experience is that I find myself having to constantly define myself to others, day-in, day-out. The quote that's helped me the most through that is from Toni Morrison's "Beloved" where she says, "Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined" - so I find myself defining myself for other people lest I be defined by others and stuck into some box where I don't particularly belong.

My encounters with racism are sort of second-hand situations where I might be standing around with a group of white friends and someone makes a comment that they wouldn't make at my family reunion.

Confidence is at the root of so many attractive qualities - a sense of humor, a sense of style, a willingness to be who you are no matter what anyone else might think or say.

Nobody's ever asked me to pay for a meal before I've eaten it, I've never been pulled over just because I was driving the wrong kind of car in the wrong kind of area at the wrong time of night.