Zitat des Tages von Teyonah Parris:
I always want to tell the truth. It doesn't have to be a pretty truth, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing and life-threatening truth like 'Chi-Raq.' But I want to tell someone's truth in an effort to inspire people to see themselves reflected on the screen.
I really feel like the stars have aligned many ways, many times for me. I have been blessed to play some awesome roles and nuanced and meaningful characters.
I love my 'Survivor's Remorse' cast. They are so funny and crazy, like a big dysfunctional family. It's so much fun, and I love the issues that we talk about on that show. We deal with nuanced and controversial issues, and we do it in a way that's funny. It's comedy.
For me, it's always about the work and the stories I'm telling and the slices of life I feel should be illuminated.
When you get older, you start to doubt, and you put limitations on yourself. But little Teyonah had no fear.
When they asked, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' I said, 'I want to be a model and an actress.' They said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because I can look good and get paid to do it.' That's the kind of kid I was.
I don't even watch basketball. I can't even pretend.
As black women, we're miles behind our white counterparts in being offered the space to create and craft female characters in major blockbuster films.
When I choose a role, what I'm looking for is the ability is to tell our stories. Me being a black woman, that's just a given. It's going to be a part of any role I do, making sure I tell it truthfully and nuanced and in a way that many people can relate to.
I, for myself, have wanted to get more into producing because I want to be a part of the conversation and be one of the voices in the story we're trying to tell.
I had been getting relaxers since I was eight or nine. I had no clue. It was a personal mission to really find out who am when I'm not altering myself to look like anybody else. Who am I when I wake up and I don't do anything to my hair? Who is that woman? I want to meet her. And that was what catapulted my journey into going natural.
Every time I get a role, or the opportunity to explore a role, I look at it, and I think, 'What is the story we're trying to tell here?'
I'm like any other girl: I see the Instagram posts and the Tumblr stuff. I'm inspired by what my fellow girls are doing.
It's important, as a young person of color, to see yourself reflected in the media.
I went straight from filming the second season of 'Survivor's Remorse,' and the creators over there were so supportive in letting me go early so I could film 'Chi-Raq.' And that was an amazing experience.
When you get into this industry and the restrictions placed on women, first, and then on women on color, next? Yeah, this business comes with its challenges. But I do not shy away from those challenges.
Working with Spike Lee was a dream of mine. It was amazing to be able to collaborate with such a visionary.
You look at 'Survivor's Remorse.' Or 'Blackish.' Or Issa Rae's brilliant, funny 'Insecure,' which started out on YouTube but is now on HBO. And you see multifaceted representations of the African-American experience. It's insanely exciting.
I was a wild child tomboy.
In my junior year of high school, I went to a boarding school for the arts: a school called the Governor's School for The Arts and Humanities. It was basically a mini-Juilliard - an intense training conservatory for the arts.
It was not hard for me to find guidance and motivation. I'm very blessed, and my parents were always so supportive of myself and my brother. Whatever you wanted to do, you just had to give 110 percent. So whatever that was, they supported it.
I try to be very particular about the roles I choose and what they say and put into the universe. I try to do my part.
I've wanted to be an actress my whole life, and the - none of the women I aspired to be like had natural hair.