Actress

Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character.

What excites me is just taking some time to breathe in life. The mundane is very exciting.

Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character.

What excites me is just taking some time to breathe in life. The mundane is very exciting.

There's no prerequisites to worthiness. You're born worthy, and I think that's a message a lot of women need to hear.

Your ability to adapt to failure, and navigate your way out of it, absolutely 100 percent makes you who you are.

We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.

To the predators... Weinstein, the stranger, the relative, the boyfriend... I say to you, 'You can choose your sin but you don't get to choose the consequences.' To the victims... I see you. I believe you... and I'm listening.

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.

That's why I do what I do, and that's why I wanted to be an actress from the time I was six years old. If I can't effectively move people, then I would prefer not to do it.

Vanity destroys your work. That's the one thing you have to let go of as an actor. I don't care how sexy or beautiful any woman is. At the end of the day, she has to take her makeup off. At the end of the day, she's more than just pretty.

The big 'Aha!' moment is that the trauma never goes away.

I was bullied at school. The black girl in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in 1973. There'd be 8 or 10 boys; I would count them as I was running.

I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.

It's a dream to be able to just play a multi-faceted character.

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 feel at home in Shondaland. I feel a lot of things at Shondaland, but one of the things I feel that I haven't felt before is at home. I feel accepted for who I am and acknowledged for who I am. I feel like my ideas are embraced.

The more I'm pushed in a position of leadership and I know I have to be the mouthpiece for so many other people who can't speak for themselves, the more confidence I'm gaining.

As an actor, every opportunity, every role, everything that I do is an opportunity to have someone have a human experience with my work. I don't just want it to be about a cute wardrobe and a high paycheck.

I just want different narratives for people of color, especially women of color. I just want something that's different. I don't want us to be put in a box. I want it to be kind of a redefinition of who were are. If I can even achieve that in a tiny way, I'll be good. I'll be good.