"I’m proud of where I come from. Now it’s nice to be in a place where I feel like when people ask me about my parents, I’m not like, ‘Let’s not talk about that.’ I’m like, ‘They’re awesome. I’m grateful to be their child. And I’m also my own human being"

"Being uncomfortable with the human body is colonization/brainwashing"

"If the story is exciting, it can get me on board even if I’m offered a small part, because I want to contribute to stories that I feel are important to tell"

"in order for someone to be on the top, someone has to be on the bottom. It's oppressive by nature"

"my instinct is always to say [to myself], ‘It’s not mine"

"I’m another human being, floating around out there in the universe and figuring it out, too. If seeing that brings you comfort, or gives you hope, or makes you feel anything— makes you feel not al􏰀one — if that is being a role model, then I’m happy to do that."

"It’s amazing to see the extent to which we’re influenced by our appearance"

"The point of being alive is to experience life and play with it"

"There have definitely been moments in my life where I’ve felt like I needed to soften my edges in some way"

"I do believe that it's something women have the power to do, but I do think we have yet been given the opportunity within society to actually exercise it on a massive scale. That is the reason why it’s open-ended. And I appreciate what you're saying about wanting to know and saying, "Okay, what does she do with this power?" But I wanted to really leave that question open. Is she ending a cycle or is she continuing a cycle? Is it the idea of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, or does everything change now because the woman is in charge and power is this entity?"

"I also really wanted to honor that generation of women that really were made to feel like, "This is how it is. Deal with it.""

"Creativity is like this invisible thread that you find, and then knowing I’ve got the thread, I’ve just got to keep following it. It’s going to show up, and that confidence is where the good shit is"

"Sometimes we can’t show up, and that’s okay as long as we know how to communicate that we love those people."

"My parents didn’t become who they are because anything was handed to them, and they didn’t raise a child who expected something to be handed to her, either"

"I see the human in everyone and everything"

"I think being kind is actually harder than people like to admit"

"Humor trumps everything and is probably number one. I think it trumps being politically correct"

"I’m a human being. I want to fucking defend myself"

"The fact that people don’t think what they say affects a celebrity because [they’re] not a person to them is crazy"

"My feelings don’t get hurt if the idea doesn’t come across or the idea doesn’t work"

"all the scripts that were being sent were about the first Black woman to make a muffin or something. Even though those stories are important to tell, I also want to open things up for myself as an artist"

"In the end, it’s all about self confidence. When you have it, there’s no need to overdo anything – you just have to choose the right colours, the right cuts and the right fabrics"

"Every time someone, but I’m thinking specifically of women, tries something they’re not sure they can do, they’re taking a risk that requires courage"

"I sincerely believe beauty is to be found inside us"

"We’ve seen stories so many times that when something is actually surprising, it’s the best gift I think you can get"

"Where women are concerned, there’s a lot of pressure to do everything perfectly, all the time. So when we go out of our comfort zone, it’s no small thing."

"And I don’t really know how or why I’d play the hero’s girlfriend, someone with no point of view. I wouldn’t know what to do with the part. There’s no humanity in that kind of character"

"There’s a difference between being cocky and knowing to trust that you know what you’re doing"

"Everyone learns differently. Everyone hears things differently. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and insecurities, and you have to learn how to support them and what they need to hear. Some actors really need to hear ‘Good job’ after a take. Some actors don’t care. It’s really understanding that"

"The fact that I was like, ‘Should I not have worn that?’…. No, I do what I want to do, and I make what I want to make, and if I start being afraid of what other people are going to say or think, I’m no longer doing my job as an artist. I’m not experiencing the world and putting that into art. I’m walking on eggshells. Fuck that. So, I needed to take a minute"

"I was incredibly privileged"

"I like playing women I identify with"

"I think I'm lucky having parents that have been in show business for a while and they don't care about the shiny stuff so much. They raised me in that way– to stay grounded, not to chase the shiny pretty things."

"I needed someone to say, “You’re a woman now. Dress like a woman"

"You can tell when someone is driven by labels. If something is couture they think it’s important and wear it and sometimes make a terrible fashion mistake. People are shocked that I know so little about designers. I know the big ones because my grandmother wore them or they’ve been around forever. I know you because you’re my best friend, but I don’t know much about the fashion world except for when I like something, I like it."

"Why aren’t women starring in more films? It’s because the men are writing them and are the ones cutting the checks. We can’t blame them, I personally don’t think. We need to take that extra step"

"Typically white people have the story, and any kind of minority is like adding that pop of red or fun purse or pair of shoes to jazz up an outfit. These people are accents that make things funny, weird, or dramatic"

"I feel like I'm juggling a lot right now, but my main focus is my cosmetics line. There's so much I want to do that I can't really think about anything else. I want to take my time and work on each individual product until it's perfect. I don't want to rush into anything."

"I had the opportunity to make like the coolest makeup line that I've always dreamed of. It's really my only passion. I learned a lot though and just have experienced things that people my age do not even know how to handle. I do feel like people don’t take me seriously as a businesswoman because of my age and my reputation. But I do think they’re starting to. I like to prove people wrong."

"I was like, I look so crazy I just have to sit in this, and let people think what they want to think, and there’s nothing I can do about it"

"Black girls, we don’t get, ‘Let’s hire her now and put her in the gym with a trainer and get her where she needs to be.’ You don’t get to get there and figure it out. You’ve got to come already ready"

"But I remember when I was praying, I felt a peace come over me, and I was like, ‘this is an answer to a prayer"

"I can still change people’s minds about me, and I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as a purpose thing."

"It's nothing that I would have ever chosen, and when I realized that it was happening, I was devastated. I was like, 'This is me, Lord. I did everything that I could do to the best of my ability. I don't understand why I did all these things, and then this is my end result.'"

"Growing up, me and Christina Milian and Zoe Saldaña were up for a lot of the same things. But also, being Black women, we kind of merged. We could be anywhere between 32 to 43. I kind of feel like we’re all somewhere around the same age of 37."

"I didn’t realize it at the time, but my concern with what other people thought about me was such a thing that I had to go through something like that where I literally had no other option, and I had to find my joy and my peace regardless of what everyone was thinking"

"I had to be put in that place in order for me to get as free as I am now"

"It's just about being present and being really thankful and just taking everything in as it's coming. I think that's the biggest thing for me in the season [is] just being present and every single day and being really thankful for my quality of life and the people I get to do life with"

"loving and treating people with respect regardless, and never letting how people treat you change the integrity of who you want to be. I think in this season especially, I'm learning to live again in a different way"