“[I want to be remembered] as a small piece of the puzzle sent here to serve a bigger picture.”

The second season of Underground does explore Canada’s role in providing a welcoming place for the thousands who were in danger of being captured and returned to their owners, and those who escaped by way of rerouting beyond the American borders.

Remakes are awesome, especially when it honors yet adds a new component or dimension to the original.

It’s no mistake that Harriet Tubman is revisiting us, in different forms, right now, as we travel through a very contentious time in the world.

The show [Shots Fired] is an autopsy of our criminal justice system.

Understanding that what it is that you’re doing isn’t limited to the roles and the rejection, it’s bigger than that, it’s about your purpose in life.

I became an instant fan of the show [Underground] seconds into the opening frames of the pilot.

Study and know that we are always a student of the craft well after we’ve completed any course of study… and approach the work as a servant, not a star.

Learning about all these elements and aspects of her was mind-blowing and educational for me as a woman because I have to sometimes remind people that have known me for years.

But truthfully, we have so many stories, lives and subjects to explore that I’d love to keep pushing towards new knowledge.

One or the other she was going to have by any means necessary.

Rosa Parks was primed, she had the Civil Rights Movement behind her, she didn’t just decide to sit on the bus, it was strategic.

I felt validated and valued , and here was this woman [Whoopi Goldberg ] inside my television screen who gave me a voice.

When that drone shot carried us through the main house with Rosalie, played so unflinchingly-brilliantly by Jurnee Smollett Bell, I signed on for the ride.

I had praying grandmothers who bathed me in “The Word” and filled the atmosphere with worship.

I walked away from the craft because I wanted to know that this is what I was supposed to do with my life.

That is a huge part of my excitement, the fact that this generation will get such a beautifully-detailed introduction to a hero and icon that has largely lived in a few pages of our history books and in one-dimensional photographs.

Hip-hop is bigger than the South; hip-hop is bigger than New York.

Man, me and Biggie were the biggest artists in New York. When he passed, I was so messed up. My attitude was messed up about him dying. There was an East-West thing back then, and I was in war mode.

If people around you aren’t going anywhere, if their dreams are no bigger than hanging out on the corner, or if they’re dragging you down, get rid of them.

In me is working a power stronger than every other power. The life that is in me is a thousand times bigger than I am outside.

The 31th of May, I perceived in the same water more of those Animals, as also some that were somewhat bigger.

I’m a thousand times bigger on the inside than I am on the outside.

My experiences in life are getting bigger and better.

There’s a lot there to enlarge you. That’s part of the value of being in an extended family is that it enlarges you. It makes you bigger. It makes you more.