“When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots, ' and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not.”
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I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a woman, you were writing about being a woman - and I decided not to do that, write about what you know. That's not what I do. I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.
President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.
To live your life well, and have respect for what came before or after - there's a strong respect for that in African culture.
I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.
