I'm looking through old things of mine, and there was this binder from when I was 14 years old. It is essentially a dream board. It is a school binder that I had put magazine clippings on. It said, 'TV actress, fame, a picture of Halle Berry, a picture of Christina Aguilera.' I was obsessed with both of them.
I really feel like the stars have aligned many ways, many times for me. I have been blessed to play some awesome roles and nuanced and meaningful characters.
I had been getting relaxers since I was eight or nine. I had no clue. It was a personal mission to really find out who am when I'm not altering myself to look like anybody else. Who am I when I wake up and I don't do anything to my hair? Who is that woman? I want to meet her. And that was what catapulted my journey into going natural.
I went straight from filming the second season of 'Survivor's Remorse,' and the creators over there were so supportive in letting me go early so I could film 'Chi-Raq.' And that was an amazing experience.
The person that inspired me throughout most of my childhood was Angela Bassett.
I've wanted to be an actress my whole life, and the - none of the women I aspired to be like had natural hair.
Ever since I was maybe nine or 10 years old, I'd say, 'I'm gonna be an actor, and I'm gonna go to Julliard, and I'm gonna be in movies.' My parents never said, 'What's your backup plan?'
Every time I see my friends on a billboard, I'm so excited. If God can do it for me or them, he can do it for everybody.
As black women, we're miles behind our white counterparts in being offered the space to create and craft female characters in major blockbuster films.
In my junior year of high school, I went to a boarding school for the arts: a school called the Governor's School for The Arts and Humanities. It was basically a mini-Juilliard - an intense training conservatory for the arts.
In working with Nick Cannon, he's such a generous guy, a generous actor, and he was very protective.
It's no coincidence that the cities with the highest rates of violence also have the highest rates of unemployment. There are not many opportunities. We have to address that, starting from the government down and the grassroots up.
I'm influenced by many things. Simply turning on the television, I feel inundated with images and messages to be a certain way. So I try to limit my influences by being aware of what I allow into my environment. I'm always conscious of what's trying to creep into my subconscious.
I want to continue to strive towards deepening my relationship with God and finding peace in whatever trials or circumstances I may be given.
I love period dramas.
For me, it's always about the work and the stories I'm telling and the slices of life I feel should be illuminated.
I always want to tell the truth. It doesn't have to be a pretty truth, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing and life-threatening truth like 'Chi-Raq.' But I want to tell someone's truth in an effort to inspire people to see themselves reflected on the screen.
It only takes one person to mobilize a community and inspire change. Even if you don't feel like you have it in you, it's in you. You have to believe in yourself. People will see your vision and passion and follow you.
You look at 'Survivor's Remorse.' Or 'Blackish.' Or Issa Rae's brilliant, funny 'Insecure,' which started out on YouTube but is now on HBO. And you see multifaceted representations of the African-American experience. It's insanely exciting.
I'm like any other girl: I see the Instagram posts and the Tumblr stuff. I'm inspired by what my fellow girls are doing.
