Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you become a slave to a public persona and don't feel comfortable without it, it becomes a shield, and it shouldn't come at the expense of your self-worth.
I've always sung. I was really into musical theater when I was growing up. As a kid, I listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, actually, on cassette tapes.
For me, I try and be authentic in my choices and follow my instincts, and I think it's a valuable message for women in today's society to learn to love yourself.
In terms of 'Beyond the Lights' and 'Belle,' they're definitely stories about identity. They're female empowerment stories. So I'm exploring that through my work.
But when you become a slave to a public persona and don’t feel comfortable without it, it becomes a shield and it shouldn’t come at the expense of your self-worth.
At home I wear my own clothes, no makeup and don't do anything exciting with my hair. I get to borrow pretty dresses for the red carpet and have experts do my hair and makeup.
At home I wear my own clothes, no makeup and don't do anything exciting with my hair. I get to borrow pretty dresses for the red carpet, and have experts do my hair and makeup.
As a biracial girl growing up in England, I'd never really seen any historical characters who looked like me depicted on film before that weren't being brutalized or playing slaves.
I spent a chunk of time in New Orleans doing the movie 'Free State Of Jones,' getting to work with Matthew McConaughey, and also did 'Concussion,' where I got to work with Will Smith.
One of my favourite places is Hampstead Heath. When I first moved to London, I lived in Highgate, and I would walk on the Heath at the weekends and go to the Kenwood House coffee shop.
I think, irrespective of your race, everybody has moments in life where they don't fit in, or where they try to puzzle through who they really are or to find the courage of their convictions.
If you're an artist, it's great to have a knowledge of the business and be educated about that, but you've got to keep the balance right between business and artistry; otherwise, you get cynical.
Everyone says to you, 'if you play Ophelia, you'll end up crazy,' but we're all somewhere on the spectrum of mental health, and I think that if you approach it that way it's not such an intimidating issue.
It's not often that you get a chance in one role to do the glamour bit and then strip off all the makeup and reveal the real person beneath the façade. Usually, it's either a glamorous role or a raw, emotional role.
I see L.A. as a workplace rather than somewhere to live. If I don't get out, I go crazy. If you have a little success, people treat you differently, so it's good to keep a healthy perspective. It's acting, not rocket science.
I was working in the States when Brexit was going on back home in England. I often think that maybe I got a little complacent on the situation since I wasn't physically there. That's when I realized, Wow, anything is possible.
I was always the one leading the way in terms of wanting to do acting, singing and dancing. I was lucky that my mother had a very well-adjusted perspective of the world and never pressured me to do anything I didn't want to do.
I just love performing so much, and I threw myself into every musical theater production that was going in my home town and at school. And then, I went to the National Youth Music Theatre, which was really a galvanizing experience for me when I was 17.
It is important to be conscious of the message that you're putting out there. It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get a movie to the screen. I do feel a certain element of responsibility to say something worth saying with it, as well as entertainment.
This is what I've always wanted to do ever since I was a little girl. Coming from dance and theater and what was accessible to me in my hometown, it was all I did after school and on the weekends. The idea of making my hobby into my job was the ultimate quest.
I don't really want to just play the girlfriend or the love interest. I get so many scripts like that, and - not to moan, because I'm really fortunate - but I just look at those scripts, and my heart sinks a little bit because I think there's so much more to us than that.
I like the collarbone, a very clean collarbone. I think there's something also very delicate and balletic about that part of a woman's body, and I'm not really a cleavage person, but I do like a back or a shoulder; I think there's something very alluring about backless dresses.
You've got to find a way to relate to people. I just did an improvised episode for Joe Swanberg's new Netflix show, 'Easy,' and it was a huge learning curve for me and taught me so much about fear and courage. But when you're present in the moment, the audience, it's incomparable.
Sometimes you can't fight change, because you're a part of it, and I feel that in the context of these films that are happening now, there is a kind of change coming in terms of how history is represented on film, and the African, and the African-American and British African experience.
I try not to limit myself. The actors that inspire me are the comedians and the people able to shape-shift into different roles and into different media. That ensures your longevity as an artist and prevents you from getting bored with yourself and, hopefully, prevents people from getting bored with you.
I was born in the '80s, so I don't really remember it very strongly, but the music is so iconic. And so those artists - Madonna, Prince, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston - you still hear those songs all the time. And there's such a distinctive style - the clothes, the shoulder pads, the big hair, the perm.
For film, I think because it's more detailed, and especially with historical material, you really have to find the right projects. Speaking as a mixed-race woman, there aren't many historical stories about people like me. When people think of 'dual heritage,' they think it's a modern concept, but really it's not.
Watching and learning from the great Josette Bushell-Mingo, who was playing Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra at the time, and then to return to the same stage six months later playing a lead role, was incredible - I fell in love with the poetry and the breadth of the language so much that I didn't want it to end.
I think being biracial is a different experience. I think that, and coming from the U.K., I feel as much white as I do black. And so it's really important for me to address these issues of identity in my work. But also, you know, we're always stronger when we work on, you know, what we have in common. And I love exploring that in my work.