Actress

I'm loving the ingredients that are in Pantene, and it smells so good, and that's important to me. It has cassia and aloe vera. The cassia flower is really good for strengthening hair strands and the aloe is wonderful for moisturizing.

I really prefer the actual experience of being onstage and living the character from beginning to end with the energy of the audience. There's nothing that beats that feeling, and yet I really have trouble with the eight shows a week.

You would never expect a black woman to be the hero.

As different as me and Sigourney look is as different as these two characters are. I'm not filling her shoes. I'm doing a part that has the same monsters, but it's a completely different movie.

I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.

I think Hollywood is so driven by money, the people who are making the decisions are not necessarily reflective of the melting pot, so what stories are you going to want to tell? You're going to want to tell stories about yourself.

I got nominated for a Tony, which was a complete surprise. It was an experience that I will always cherish.

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

The Alien is gross, scary. There is something in a human being that looks at them and sees it as a cockroach. You can never feel nurturing towards the cockroach.

People make jokes about how black people are the first ones to be killed off.

CGI is done after the film is done. It's through the computer. Most of the film is not computer-generated special effects. Most of it is that creature that is in the room with you.

I liked the fact that there were so many different representations of black women and black men in the movie. It wasn't like we all had the same agenda.

If someone has already done a role I'm about to do, I won't watch the original until after I'm finished playing the role.

Some of us just have to work harder to stay in the game.

I think I'm a character actress in a leading lady's body, but the industry doesn't really see me that way.

Being strong can be also feminine. I don't think feminine equals being weak. Being strong is very sexy.

In 1979, Alien came out and Sigourney was in it with a bunch a guys. Nobody at that time expected the woman to be the hero, so that was a tradition that started.

The great thing about the stage is that you have a structured month-long rehearsal period where you're going in every day. You have to have lots of run-throughs with theater because there are no second takes in front of a live audience.

When you have a play, you have to be on every night.

When you're on a set it can be very tedious and slow. It's just not as big as when you see it on film.