Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It’s always the unspoken word and what’s happening behind someone’s eyes that makes it so rich.
The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, “You change the school, you change the community.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around that.
Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person’s capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.
We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes – that’s what it is, as an actor.
I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.
We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.
And ‘classically not beautiful’ is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.
When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive.
Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.
I don’t want anyone putting any limits on me.
I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent.
I don’t have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn’t love me has to say about me.
I’ve always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.
And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script.
Motherhood is 50 million heartbreaking moments, and 100 million joyous ones.
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.
I am not a writer, but I feel that when our production company is successful, we’ll be able to give some young writers with fresh voices an opportunity to put their work out there.
No matter what, people don’t think of me for glamorous parts. I’ll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.