“For a long time, I was almost ashamed of being an actress. I felt like it was a shallow occupation. People would be watching my every move.”

You go through spells where you feel that maybe you’re too sensitive for this world. I certainly felt that.

What’s awful about being famous and being an actress is when people come up to you and touch you. That’s scary, and they just seem to think it’s okay to do it, like you’re public property.

I was raised to believe that religion is a beautiful thing, but it’s fiction.

I don’t want to preach, and I don’t want to tell people what to do.

I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression.

When you finally accept that it’s OK not to have answers and it’s OK not to be perfect, you realize that feeling confused is a normal part of what it is to be a human being.

Society makes suicide so romantic.

Looking back – I did have a lot of success and a lot of great opportunities earlier in my career.

I love books and going to bookstores. My favorite sound is the sound of the needle hitting the record.

I’m very attached to movie theaters and I love going to them. Nothing will ever replace that. It’s very romantic and beautiful. I used to want to live inside of one, with a bathtub, a bike and a bed, and just watch movies.

You can’t pay enough money to cure that feeling of being broken and confused.

Weird people follow you in the streets, you can’t sit alone in a restaurant or a cafe and read a book in peace, and I think everybody values those moments of being alone.

You try to get out there and live. I’ve always had good friends who’ve been very supportive and help make me feel good and grounded because I’ve never felt attached to the film industry.

I think it’s important to have as much as a normal life and take the time to get perspective because it only helps your work in the long run.

It’s just people should realize that the celebrity aspect of being an actor is very rarely enjoyable for people like me who would always rather go unnoticed and disappear into the crowd.

I’m quite comfortable looking at myself in movies, probably because I’ve been doing it for so long, since I was a kid. So I sort of watched myself grow up and go through adolescence, like, basically on camera.

For an actor, it is better to play well (or even not so well) in a bad film, than to not play at all.

There is a huge gap between the remuneration of an actor and actress.

Blessed to meet so many great people everywhere I go. Can’t thank you all enough for the support.

I don’t read reviews, but I do get feedback from my peers and people I know, like other actors and directors and producers.

I think there’s a difference between a working actor, a movie star and a celebrity. They’re all three different things.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor’s process.

The industry looks for white actors and actresses, but it’s not the same for black actors. We have to really put the work in.

One of the first things I was taught as an actor was, ‘Don’t judge the character.’