Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.

For some reason, all artists have self-esteem issues.

My mother's great. She has the major looks. She could stop you from doing anything, through a closed door even, with a single look. Without saying a word, she has that power to rip out your tonsils.

No matter what you say to yourself, you do want to win. You try to look casual, like you're not thinking, 'oh, please pick me.'

An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything.

Thank you, God, because I am lucky. Also let's face it, it turns out I'm black. And I'm having a career quite different from lots of people, so I feel doubly lucky.

I had gone through several crazy headache bouts, and I realized that part of the reason I was having them was because I wasn't smoking marijuana. When my daughter gave me a vape pen, I realized that I could relegate it to where I needed it to be. And I would talk to my older grandkids in their 20s, and they'd say they use weed to stop cramps. That's when I really started to investigate and asked the question, "Is anybody doing this?" And they gave me that horrifying answer: "niche market".