This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

I was trained as an actress. But I wasn't a very convincing actress so I started doing punk poetry and then fell into doing stand-up.

There's always an imbalance with actors and actresses in the industry. And I think because there are just fewer movies overall being made it's that trickle down effect.

People go to the movies to watch a film and all they're thinking about is the actress's cellulite they saw in a magazine.

I'm fighting the label of 'Black' actress simply because it's very limiting in people's eyes especially people who are making movies.

I really like Gwyneth Paltrow a lot as far as her career because I think she's done a lot of small movies but she's also done great big movies and she's a really great actress.

I feel I want to grow as an actress and be better. I want to progress as a singer and songwriter and produce movies and everything. So there'll be no time when I feel I've done it all.

I just knew that was what I wanted to do. I was going to perform as a singer I was going to perform as a dancer and I was you know going to do movies and be an actress. I was going to do it or die trying. That's what my life was.

Give me a couple of years and I'll make that actress an overnight success.

The thing with me is if I wake up one morning and I'm not happy working as an actress I'll stop. It's not something I have to do. It's not a vocation.

Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.

An actress is not a machine but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.

For as long as I've been acting I have been very lucky to be paired with really great actresses playing my mom.

My parents were both in show business. My father was an actor my mom an actress and both singers dancers and actors. They met in Los Angeles doing a play together and so I grew up in a show biz family.

I've always wanted to be an actress ever since I was a little girl. I always played the mom and I played my sister as the daughter. I wanted to be an actress on television and movies instead of just around the house.

The rule with my mom was that the only way that I could be an actress when I was young was that I continued to go to public school and get straight A's in all my classes.

I saw things at an early age because my mom was a theater actress. I did a play with her when I was 10 years old.

I've had Susan Sarandon play my mom and now Lesley Ann Warren has played my mom so if I could have Debra Winger play my mom then I would have the trifecta of my favorite actresses playing my mother.

I'm a full-time mom right now and a part-time actress.

I'm an actress and mom and I probably don't have enough of an active spiritual life. And I don't know why people run around calling themselves by the names of religions when they don't actually practise them.

I was embarrassed that I even wanted to become an actress because coming from L.A. with two older sisters in the business and a mom who had been a ballet dancer it was such a cliche.

No my mom kind of led me toward acting. She wanted to be an actress when she was younger. That made me interested in it when I was a kid because she and I are very close.

My mom was an actress in the local Seattle theater doing experimental plays.

It's about getting the kids up and fed getting one to school getting the other down for a nap going to the grocery store picking one up from school getting the other one down for another nap cooking dinner... I live my life at these two extremes. I'm either a full-time stay-at-home mom or a full-time actress.