I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself.

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.

I value not being good at things, because children are not good at things.

I loved make-believe. I was the child in the cupboard playing with my Barbies.

I grew up in the limelight and being the child of someone famous. So my relationship with fame is not bedazzled.

As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.

As actors, you become an expert at starting over.

There's always a sense of newness with acting, because every role, you come to every role fresh.

I was born in Mexico because my father was teaching at a school in Mexico City. I was born during the third year he was there. And when I was 16, I returned to Mexico to learn Spanish.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

That's such a powerless place for me to think about: what is working against me. I don't think of what I don't have; I think of what I do and use that to get the next thing.

I grew up in a world where the majority of people were black, so that wasn't the defining quality of anyone. When you're describing someone, you don't start out with 'he's black, he's white.'

I thrive on structure. I find my freedom in structure.

I was raised in Kenya, and I always wanted to be an actor from when I was really, really little, but the first time I thought it was something that I could make a career of was when I watched 'The Color Purple.' I think I was nine, maybe, and I saw people that looked like me - Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah.

Growing up, I had really bad skin. I had a skin disorder. Yes, I did. And my mother went to great lengths to try to find something to remedy it. I remember she took a trip to Madagascar and came back with all these alternative, medicinal herbs and stuff. They didn't smell so good, but I think they worked some magic.

I was part of a growing community of women who were secretly dealing with harassment by Harvey Weinstein. But I also did not know that there was a world in which anybody would care about my experience with him.

It's great to have something to dress up for. You know, I spent three years in slacks at drama school, so now I like putting a dress on.

What's becoming very obvious to me is that fashion is art.

In the madness, you have to find calm.

I didn't love my hair when I was a child. It was lighter than my skin, which made me not love it so much. I was really kind of envious of girls with thicker, longer, more lush hair.

There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.

I always love to learn new things. That's the reason I like being an actor.

Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood. And dreams are the foundation of America.

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.