I love talking, and I love communicating with people and hearing new ideas, but I do get very self-conscious about how I form my thoughts, and I tend to be somebody who acts from a very instinctual place and tries to live from a very instinctual plac...
One of the things about being raised British in Africa is that you get this double whammy of toughness. The continent in place itself made you quite tough. And then you've got this British mother whose entire being rejects 'coddling' in case it makes...
I think for some actors, the fame is an unfortunate by-product of the work. I don't feel quite like that. Don't get me wrong: I'm very, very steadfast about wanting to keep my personal life personal and making sure that I have plenty of time with my ...
I was the singing voice of a cartoon character. I did dog food commercials. I did a lot of commercials, actually, and helped pay my rent and my classes. Then I'd get one good line or two good scenes. I was building my career and building my own exper...
When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't...
When I first got to L.A., I was stretching $20 a week, waiting tables, and I did that for about six months. I didn't mind it at all, I was really happy for that experience, but it made me really get aggressive about what I want. I've been doing this ...
That's the great thing about being an actor: Stuff shows up that you never thought was going to go down. You get to play or experience an area of the world that - you know, I live a pretty simple life, I'm not much of an adventurer. I like my couch a...
My mother passed away when I was 14, so there were certain things I missed in terms of upbringing. Maybe my mother would have said, 'You have to get a real job.' I don't know because I didn't have that experience. My fortes in school were Spanish, sp...
I learned a long time ago that if I really wanted to bring my ideas into experience, I needed to write down my intentions. When you put pen to paper, you have little choice but to get specific. The actual process of forming your thoughts into words o...
I was always very aware of the nature of the place where I was growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi, how that place was shaping my experience of the world. I had to go to the Northeast for graduate school because I felt like I had to get far away from...
Other families who are poor do what they can to get out of it. My mother did not. She did not utilise her resources. She had a degree. There was something she could have done, but she actively, purposely refused that so we could have this absolutely ...
I think that we're all, as human beings, so limited. If we want to write about ourselves, that's fairly easy. And if we write about our friends or our families, we can do that. But if we want to project ourselves somewhere beyond our personal experie...
When I eat cilantro, it's like someone sprayed perfume down my throat. It closes up my throat, even if there's only a little piece. I like Mexican food, and I'll go out to a Mexican restaurant and tell them, 'Look, I will die if you get cilantro in m...
All the time people ask me, like, 'Oh my God, what did you do to get ready for the red carpet?' And I'm like, 'I just had Thai food.' I love to work out and do cardio and have a healthy, active lifestyle, but I also am not going to, like, freak out o...
The moment I finish 'any' book, my feels are pretty much the same. Goes a little something like this: It's done? Whimper. Tears of joy. Oh, my back. Relief! Shower! Food! Sleep! Oh, my back. You mean I get to catch up on my favorite TV shows? Tears o...
'Ms.' always flouted the rules of the ad world that say, especially for products directed at women, that the ad must be connected to the editorial. You don't have food ads unless you have recipes. You don't get clothing ads unless you have lavish fas...
I always have this image of a woman running across a desert carrying children, trying to find water and food, not knowing when they'll get that. And her feet are slashed up from the dry, hard earth... Even when I'm uncomfortable, sometimes in pain, o...
We never intend to lose our jobs, break up with our live-in loves, or face any number of the curveballs life throws our way. But they happen all the same, so have a bailout plan just in case. Sounds corny, but I call this the 'freedom fund' because i...
It's been said of me that I must get out of bed every morning and go cartwheeling down the road. Of course it's not true. There certainly was a time in my 20s when I wanted a bit of freedom, and I found that difficult, but if I'm ever having a time w...
While it's really hard to do, at the same time, I'm escaping my body, which I really want to do. I'm living someone else's life. I get very intensely into the story, into the interviews and the research. I'm experiencing things along with my subjects...
For a good workout, I go to At One Fitness in North Hollywood, where my trainer, Jon Allsop, puts me through it all. I like it because it's a small gym and I've known the people for a long time. Jon will have me do cross-training where I'll lift weig...
