Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There's something about Jason Katims' writing that just feels like home to me. He gives you so much liberty to play, which you don't find on most TV shows. You just don't.
After being a mom, we are now in a different chapter in our womanhood, and instead of trying to be our old selves or get our old body back, we should embrace who we are now.
I am oftentimes the ear for some people that I know and love. Which I like being. I don't know if I'd like being a marriage counselor, though, because that's too deep for me.
There's injustices within our system that we inherited from this time, from slavery, and until we confront our past, we're not going to be able to heal the wounds for our future.
Before being a mom, I remember going on a Twitter rant during the whole George Zimmerman trial in Florida about my younger brothers and how one day I'll be the mom of a black son.
There's this notion, kind of like unspoken, that you can't live your dreams and be a mom. You can't have a career and be a mom. There's still that preconceived notion, and I reject that.
There are obstacles and challenges that my dark-skinned sisters face that I will never know. How they are perceived when they walk in a room of strangers is something I will never truly know.
I'm such a huge fan of Gap! My mom used to dress me in Gap overalls that I would wear all the time, and now the idea of bringing my son into that tradition is so ironic and full-circle for me.
As an artist, you want to stretch. That's the only way you're going to grow. If I stay inside my comfort zone, do roles that I've done before, then I'm never going to get better as an actress.
With film, there's a consistency to it, but what I like about the TV shows that I've been fortunate to do, like 'Friday Night Lights' and 'True Blood,' is that it feels like you're doing a film.
The Underground Railroad, which was the first integrated civil rights movement, is a part of our history that not a lot of us know about. And it's actually a very empowering side of our history.
If I have a jump rope and a resistance band, I can work out anywhere. Even without a jump rope. If you do 200 jumping jacks, then drop and do some crunches, and then do some squats, you're good.
My best advice would be that you have to be vulnerable with each other. Like, everyone says you have to be honest, you have to communicate; like, yes, of course, but you gotta be willing to be vulnerable.
I try to give each performance my own soul, to bring a truth to my character. Hopefully, when I bring that much truth to a character, it resonates with somebody, and it sparks some kind of emotion in them.
I don't know if I would be doing what I do without 'Eve's Bayou,' and I don't know if I would have the career that I have without working on 'Eve's Bayou.' The love for what I do, I found it in that project.
A lot of the issues today may not affect us personally, but we can't stay in our comfort zone when it comes to protecting our brothers and sisters. We have to get out there and use our voices for them as well.
You go through those awkward, dorky, geeky stages, and growing up in the industry amplifies all that. Fortunately, I have a mother who encouraged me to build my confidence from within and embrace my imperfections.
Injustice is either very blatant - you walk down the street and someone calls you a name; you don't get a job because of your gender or your skin color or your sexual preference - but injustice is also very subliminal.
The AIDS epidemic began before I was born - I've never known a world without it. And yet, despite its omnipresence in our lives, there remains a pervasive silence around AIDS among young people, particularly young women.
We all try to pretend we're the person we want to be when we're really not, and you've just gotta be willing to say, 'Here are all my flaws; here's who I am - take it or leave it. If you love me still, then let's do this.'
We used to play touch football, where you put the little rag in your pocket. I was good because I was fast. I wasn't the greatest at catching. Sometimes the ball would come so hard and fast that it'd knock the wind out of me.
I'm so proud of 'Underground' because it's this thriller; it's this action- adventure. It's unexpected. People think it's gonna one be one thing - they think it's gonna be very depressing and downtrodden - and it's empowering.
People look at you, and they think they know you. They think they can place you in a certain category by what they think they know about you. But there's so much more to all of us than what we know and what we see at face value.
My mom is from New Orleans. And all of my maternal relatives were there during Katrina. We couldn't even find my uncle for four months. We literally didn't know where he was. I had been there just four days before the storm hit.
The slave narratives, there is a wealth of research there, because you are hearing stories from the first person account, and that's a whole different thing than reading about it in the history books. You're able to really personalize it.
My mom is African-American, Native-American, Irish, and Creole, and my father is of Jewish, Russian, and Polish descent. It's made me who I am. Because of my diverse background, I think I can relate to many different people, different stories, and different communities.
'Full House' was the first time I had ever been in front of a live audience. I said a line I had rehearsed with my mom, and they laughed. It was wild. To have that energy of the live audience was like, Whaaat? Feeding off that live audience was, to a 4 or 5 year old, a high.
There's a lot of progress happening in TV. You have amazing shows like 'How to Get Away With Murder.' You have people like Shonda Rhimes, Lee Daniels with 'Empire,' and Jason Katims with 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Parenthood.' You have people behind the scenes writing complex women.
We got spoiled with 'Friday Night Lights.' Not every show is like that, and on other shows, if you try to bring that same truth or that same approach, the system of television doesn't always allow for that level of collaboration, which is unfortunate because the work would be richer.
I started shooting 'The Defenders' two days after I wrapped' Friday Night Lights.' I was doing research for 'The Defenders' throughout - interviewing lawyers and sitting in courtrooms just to watch - but there's something fun about throwing yourself in the water and learning by doing.
I always said, 'Whenever I get pregnant, I'm going to embrace all of the body changes that happen.' My focus has not been on any sort of snap-back or anything like that, because your body won't be the same after giving birth, and if anything, that's something to be celebrated, embraced, and owned.
Oftentimes, a history book in school will talk about the Underground Railroad as if it's one sentence. But thousands of people decided to run, and they single-handedly changed the trajectory of our nation. By running to the North, they put a face to slavery, which recruited a lot of abolitionists.
They did laugh; they did fall in love. And while they were under incredibly oppressive conditions, they constantly were trying to steal pleasures. When you go back to the slave narratives, and you read books like the 'Bullwhip Days' or 'Incidents in the Life of the Slave Girl,' they will share what life was like, and it's a 365-degree view.