For me, when you are have people wondering what is next, what is coming out, you are on the right track.
I'm a mash-up of everyone. My influences would be Michael Jackson, Brandy, Aaliyah - those types of people. So if you can imagine them - and with me taking them, and then putting my own twist and the influence on it - that's musically what I would sound like.
Like a lot of black people, I grew up straight po'. Wasn't no question about whether we was po', either. If you really wanted to know, all you had to do was look in our refrigerator.
When you're in a public profession like I was, and you stop doing it like I did, people think you're either crazy or dead.
It is a difficult one, as you get scripts where women are just objects.
I was an usher at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith. You had to watch whatever play they had on 40 times.
I really feel like sometimes I'll write these songs, and I'll just think, 'You know that couldn't have come from me alone.' I believe that God inspires us. I believe that He gives us gifts and talents, and it's up to us to develop them and choose what we do with them.
One thing I've learned, and I don't really blame anybody for this: most people who have a lot of money are the people that want to make money more than anyone. I've seen it with athletes, I've seen it with musicians, you know?
You know that thing where you're trying to do the crossword puzzle, and you're trying to fit the word that's in your head in the puzzle, and then you go 'Ugh!' and you walk away, and then it comes to you. I'm interested in that moment. The release of expectation, and the release of pleasing yourself and pleasing anybody. Breaking the mindset.
You do need money to make a good demo; you do need a bit of financial support.
A human body is a conversation going on, both within the cells and between the cells, and they're telling each other to grow and to die; when you're sick, something's gone wrong with that conversation.
It's lovely to work with a group of actors who make you laugh and smile.
If you can't laugh at your own characters, or shed a tear for them, or even get angry at one of them, no one else will either.
When you go home, fill the house with joy so that the light of it will stream out the windows and doors and illuminate even the darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the world.
I find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.
You have to really have the will to hang onto the first note as it is being played, and then really stay with it and take the flight, as it were, you know, for the duration of the piece.
You can't have a discussion about politics without mentioning Ronald Reagan.
As a person gets older, time gets more interesting. As a kid, you waste so much of it.
In most shows, there's usually a hero or a protagonist, and even if there are multiple heroes or protagonists, most shows try and make it so you really always know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy.
I had a brilliant drama teacher while I was at Roland Park: Ann Mainolfi. But the school was mostly rich in academics. It wasn't like I was prepping myself for a life in acting. There, you prepped yourself to have a stable future. The school's piece de resistance is college prep - it didn't teach you how to audition for a TV show.
I think health care is a mess. I think that, as a free market person, you can't even have that discussion unless you know what the service costs.
I think it's really important to find the right balance for you - a way of eating and living that satisfies you physically and mentally - and that's different for everyone.
You can't do TLC dances successfully in high heels.
I'm shy. I am. I mean, if I get around, you know, in a room of a bunch of people especially I - you know, I don't know or - it takes me a while to warm up. I'm - and the real me, I'm not as witty as, you know, as the comic Wanda. The comic, she's had time to work on some things.
Sometimes when you're working on a period piece, there's this tendency to be nostalgic about the period and do everything superglamorous, which can end up looking cliche.
One of the biggest things I struggle with is people's opinions. As much as I would like to say that I don't care, I see those comments. And sometimes it affects you more than others, or may completely change your mood.
In our friendships we have to be wise that we choose godly people to be our friends. Somebody might say, well does that mean that you should never have a lost person as your friend? No, I wouldn't say that. But you can't have the same intimacy with a lost person that you can with a godly person in whom the Holy Spirit is living.
It's fun chasing boys, especially when you're young, but I think it takes time and life experience to notice the other boys.
You have to have a sense of what it looks like, not from the point of view of the policymaker but from the point of view of those who are at the receiving end of your policies.
They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.
When you're making the film, you don't really think the audience; it's only when you start editing that you really start to became aware of your audience because you're thinking of how you communicate these ideas, and how lucid can you be, and yet stay within the language you've established.
If you followed the media you'd think that everybody in Africa was starving to death, and that's not the case; so it's important to engage with the other Africa.
'It Girl' is supposed to be something that only lasts a certain amount of time. They keep calling me an 'It Girl,' and at this point it makes me laugh, because I've done that so many times: 'You're it;' 'You're not it.' What is 'it?'
In my family, there was one parent you asked for money and the other for permission to do things. You could never get both out of one parent.
When things go wrong or don't turn out the way you pictured them in your head, you just have to go with the best intentions defense. I have a lot of good intentions.
I grew up as a Christian, and I always think of Jesus as someone right next to us, you know, someone really close, and I never actually saw that onscreen in a way that could be identified.
