Uzo Aduba

"Naming in my culture will tell you more about the parent of the child than the child themself and also what is being spoken onto the child. So my full name is Uzoamaka Nwanneka Aduba, but the first name Uzoamaka, it means "the road is good." My second name, my middle name, it means "nothing is more important than your sisters," and my last name means "the mediator.”"

"I used to hate my gap as a kid, in front teeth ... and I would beg, beg, beg for braces because everybody had braces. Everybody was fixing their "horrible teeth," whatever that means. And my mom, she was just like, "No, absolutely not."...She said, "Don't you know that in Nigeria and throughout Africa, a gap is a sign of beauty? Why would you want to close it?" And I was like, "Sure, but we live in America."...."

"I think it felt challenging because I was a Black woman and also because I was a dark-skinned Black woman, because those roles didn't exist in a wide range, or they kind of felt always relegated to the background, almost like an afterthought. And so I knew that it was going to be very difficult. I think I knew for a fact that it was going to be more noes than yeses. I think I knew that for whatever reason, things beyond my control, meaning how I look, were going to determine what I was going to be allowed to do"

"…When my mother left me — if we believe in these sort of things — she came to me in my dream a week later and she said to me, just like this, "Uzo, you are settled." And it gave me such a peace and a calm that I could continue without her, because I never had [been without her]. She was always in my corner. I talked to my mom every day, whether [by] email, text, phone. And I know that those lessons, those teachings that she placed inside of me have readied me for this next phase of my life."