I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?

If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of twenty million full-time volunteers.

I believe that parts of people like John Garfield and Moms Mabley, the parts of them that I needed to be able to do what I'm doing, came into me. There's a very nice feeling that there are many, many spirits inside of me looking after me . . .

Chocolate and candy. That's what we brought in to our friends. We worked in East Berlin with other artists who were smuggled out to come work in the Western Bloc. It was extraordinary because people in East Berlin just wanted to know what was happening. Music. Fashion. The news. All of the things we get every day.

The people who can be helping to make movies that have blacks and Latinos and women and all that - that movie doesn't come to you. Because the idea is that there's no place for black movies.

I won once [an Oscar]. So it can't be that racist.

What we're doing is not just about becoming a model. It's bigger than that. It's shining a spotlight on folks who know who they are. They know what they want to do. And in terms of modeling, they're already working. They know what they're doing! They're fantastic!