You always have to think in a new modern way, and you always have to push yourself in fashion because it's a big treadmill. You can't really get off it. You just have to move a little faster.
Although my mother didn't necessarily approve of teenage girls wearing heels, she made an exception for me when I was 14 because she didn't want me to be self-conscious about my height - or to slouch.
I really like Amelia Earhart. She's from Kansas. She disappeared, so I have to take her place. I want to be Dorothy. I want to be Amelia Earhart... I want to do it all.
I am far from perfect, but I have something else. I heard that people in the industry are longing for more personality and diversity. Perhaps I am more a 'character' than a model.
I'm not going to sit here and say, 'Pity me; I came from modeling.' It's opened a lot of doors. People will take meetings because they've heard the name before. That's an advantage that I have.
With my first pay cheque I sent my parents to Jamaica, so they actually got passports! They're pretty grounded; it wasn't until they saw the trailer for 'Battleship' that they were like, 'Ooh, this is a big movie, isn't it?'
Sailing is the closest I can get to nature - it's adrenaline, fear, a constant challenge and learning experience, an adventure into the unknown. And of course there is nothing better than wearing the same T-shirt for days and not brushing my hair for...
What people don't realize is that fame, whatever your worst experience in high school, when you were being bullied by those ten kids in high school, fame is that, but on a global scale, where you're being bullied by millions of people constantly.
What I like about modelling is that it has given me that opportunity to travel and experience different cultures, work with creative people, and now it's given me a voice, and with that voice hopefully I can do good things with it.
I've made it my mission to make movies starring African American actors and about the African American experience and put them in the mainstream. They're very universal stories I've told - every movie I've done.
I graduated in '91, so the '90s for me were very much the first years out of school, so I can't really look at that decade as independent of my own experience of my 20s, really.
The magic happens when you take facts and figures, features and benefits, decks and PowerPoints - relatively soulless information - and embed them in the telling of a purposeful story. Your 'tell' renders an experience to your audience, making the in...
I don't like posh hotels. I like small, eclectic hotels, and luxury for me would mean really good company with good food in a really funky, beautiful house in the middle of a field where someone came and serviced the place for us.
I'm a really good cook. I bake a lot. I cook dinner most nights. I cook everything from Italian food to Mexican food. But if I'm going to some place and it's a potluck, I'm always the one to bring dessert!
I've been trying to watch my weight a bit, but when I come to Las Vegas, all bets are off. I get enough healthy food in L.A. where the food is the size of a quarter and costs $40 - when I'm in Vegas, I want a steak!
When I wake up, I'm like, 'I gotta go to Whole Foods.' I'm constantly reading cookbooks; I bring hardcover cookbooks with me on the plane and tag pages. I just have this crazy food obsession.
I used to watch my grandmother make fancy, Julia Child-style beef bourguignon. And growing up in New York City, I was exposed to many cultures. I experimented with Puerto Rican and Jamaican food.
I always used to wonder why American actors were getting fat, then I made a U.S. movie. I'm seeing all the food every day, and there's lots of waiting around because making an American movie is very slow.
When I was at primary school, we had this theory that if you ate an egg, it meant you'd get pregnant and give birth to a chicken or another egg. It was something we dared together. I avoided eggs for years, but now they're my favourite food.
My perfect day is constantly changing. Right now, it would be to lie around in a hammock reading with a portable phone and a table of food next to it. I would spend all day there. And that's all that I can possibly come up with on the spur of the mom...
I know my husband really loves me because he takes me to have ribs. He says I'm the only girl he ever took out who actually ate anything on her plate, as opposed to pushing it around.
