“I might have had too many friends in my twenties.”

FBF to one of the most beautiful locations I’ve ever shot at.

Rise up. Register. Let your voice be heard.

I can definitely dance, but pedestrian dancing.

I’m not so keen on letting my car drive itself.

I don’t have a smart house. My house is very dumb.

Each movie you do about a real person is like a painting, and you choose certain things in the painting that you want to pull out and you want to show.

I’d taken, like, maybe some African dance classes a couple of times, but I wasn’t a musical theater person at all.

I can’t even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.

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.

Sometimes when you’re acting, you only need a little bit of something to sort of channel or, you know, transport into a place.

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

I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York, and I didn’t have money to pay my rent.

I would love to play Jimi Hendrix.

In television you don’t have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it’s even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.

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.

I’m racist? How can that even be possible? I was a friend of Michael Jackson’s back when he was black.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you. I could walk through my garden forever.

I’m still friends with all my exes, apart from my husbands.

Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful not because of you white people but because of other black people.

I was a Republican until they lost their minds.

A governor can be a very good friend to people. A governor can be a formidable force.

Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

Wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don’t know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering you on.