My mom was really busy when I was growing up, but she did a really good job in terms of balancing her home life with her professional life. She basically took me everywhere.

The reason why I like theater is because it's a long journey, and no matter what role you play, we are all in it together.

My first exploration through art was really through music - I've trained classically with piano for about ten years.

I grew up in the theater with my mom and that's how I knew I wanted to be an actor in the first place.

The way I work emotionally is: I don't ever try to cry. I try not to, which is what for me produces organic emotion.

I wasn't even a theater kid in high school. I studied classical piano, and I ran track.

I started playing piano when I was around four; thats my first passion.

When I'm in Los Angeles, sometimes I hesitate saying that I'm an actor because people are like, "Of course you are." And I'm like "No, not, 'Of course I am.'"

My thing is that if you don't really connect to something or see that it's going to be something you're going to be proud of, I wouldn't do it.

Personally, especially as a young black woman, I didn't think that Los Angeles was a place for me to start. There's a certain type that they go for or don't.

My view of myself as an artist expanded because of the time I spent at Cal Arts.

And I said, 'Do I have leprosy?' And they said, 'You are a dangerous element.

No, you don't shoot things. You capture them. Photography means painting with light. And that's what you do. You paint a picture only by adding light to the things you see.

You cannot fail unless you quit.

I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.

The reluctant hero is always fun to play.

The only one who could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man.

Fundamentally I feel that there is as much difference between the stage and the films as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both.

As a public person, I've always tried to reflect what is embodied in our defining ideals as a nation about equality and fairness and justice and so forth.

Each of us has been sent to earth by our Heavenly Father to merit eternal life

I love Logic Audio and have been using it for years. All my track outputs used to come up on my old board in the same order as in the old Mac G4 - 1 through 32, came up as 1 through 32, for instance.