I'm always like, 'Well, let's not rest on a critical acclaim or on a incredible review or on a great reception.'
Poetry has, in a way, been my bridge to my acting career.
When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.
We are a total of our sum parts, right? I came from a family of very strong women - black women. And if I go back as far as my great grandmothers, there was always that love and the ability to be nurturing. Then I grew up in a household where my father was the one who was more affectionate with me.
Some of the most amazing people I've met in life are cops.
I found poetry at 12 and 13 and, lo and behold, learned that my attorney father had a background in poetry - as he wore dashikis and Afros in the '70s and named his kids Arabic names. He was a poet and a lot like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron and all of these folks. He definitely was an artist.
Deciding to not attach ourselves to something that doesn't appropriately represent us is extremely powerful.
I always have a backpack. I was a poet, so it reminds me of being a backpack poet.
I was at UGA playing with Champ Bailey and Hines Ward - both guys who will probably touch the Hall of Fame one day.
I think, by nature you know, I'm very attracted and I gravitate toward the very strong girl who can watch a ballgame, but who's also extremely feminine.
I was at a ballpark as much as I was in school. I was on a basketball court or football field as much as I was in school, so I definitely was receiving mentorship when it came to coaches, my father, my grandfather, and my uncles.
People are fond of that 'crabs in a barrel' mentality, and I'm like, 'No, there needs to be more so we can create more barrels; there doesn't need to be one barrel.'
I did 'Fences' off-broadway at the Beacon Theater, so it's amazing that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis brought it to Broadway.
Poetry is almost like my foundation for everything. I almost feel I am a better actor and writer because of it.
You can't look at the dollar and say, 'I'm not what I dreamed of being unless I do this type of movie and it's a blockbuster that gives me this amount of dollars.' That's not good.
If you remain open to great directors who look like you, who know what they're doing and are making impactful films that are destroying these 'blockbuster films,' you can do okay, and everybody can get more of a piece of the pie. But you've got to be open and brave.
Unlike many Californians or New Yorkers, college football is a religion down south.
For me, music was a cathartic way to free me from the nut of Ghost. After working on set for 'Power' for 14 hours, it allowed me to pour my sanity and insanity into the music.
If your character is just out there acting a fool, viewers are gonna say, 'Why am I watching this?' But if he's whispering, 'I don't really want to die,' there's a level of vulnerability cemented in these bad characters.
Like anybody who grew up in the Eighties, I cringe at the thought of these movies being remade, because of the corniness and cheesiness of the originals.
