I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin, and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come, and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first.
The beauty standards had nothing to do with me in Mexico. It was such a bizarre, dire time for my hair. I was living in a small town where there was not any semblance of an African community. I'd have to take the bus to Mexico City to find a woman who could braid my hair. That was two and a half hours away.
It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.
I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.
Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood. And dreams are the foundation of America.
I grew up in the limelight and being the child of someone famous. So my relationship with fame is not bedazzled.
I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities.
It's only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you're not expressing the utmost of your human experience.
Clay can be dirt in the wrong hands, but clay can be art in the right hands.