“Acting is about being real, being honest.”

I do think it’s important for young women to know that magazine covers are retouched. People don’t really look like that.

I look like people that walk down the street. I don’t have perfect boobs, I don’t have zero cellulite – of course I don’t – and I’m curvy. If that is something that makes women feel empowered in any way, that’s great.

I don’t have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody else’s or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are.

I am insecure. If you ask me, everybody is.

I still don’t believe this craziness for being skinny, but I eat sensibly and I don’t stuff down chocolate biscuits.

I was the kid who never won the races. I never jumped the highest. I wasn’t on the list of the high-achieving.

I accept my body. I accept how I am and make the best of what I am given.

Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me.

I’m often moved by the circumstances around some of my characters, but I don’t think I’ve actually cried watching myself.

There are moments to indulge and enjoy, but I always know when it’s time to go home and wash my knickers.

Of course I believe in marriage. Commitment to one other person in life is glorious.

Regret isn’t good. Every decision one makes in life is made for a reason or another. Whenever something bad happens, I go, ‘This is happening for a reason’, or, ‘This is going to teach me something’.

I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin.

If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail.

I wanted to play incredibly challenging, multifaceted characters. Because we are all a puzzle.

I have just wanted to be an actress. That’s always been my goal. I didn’t want to be famous.

I want virtue, honesty, love and compassion. From myself and for myself.

Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.

I think, being emotional is this thing that people think you’re not strong. They don’t look at you as a strong person, and it’s weird ‘cuz honestly being emotional has nothing to do with your strength.

I want to make my own path and leave behind a good legacy for myself and honestly, I just want to be innovative and always down for other people. That’s what I want to be remembered by. I want to inspire.

I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That’s what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there’s nothing.

Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.

You wouldn’t take me to be a Skrillex fan, but honestly, when I’m at his shows, I get high and liquored up, and I just go in the crowd and start raving.

I think honestly when I was younger I use to love going to carnivals in Long Island. I use to love carnival season; I would drive to every town going to carnivals. That was definitely a favorite memory.