The roles that I feel I get, or handed to me, or whatever, are not that interesting. I don't think it's a problem that's specific to black women. I think it's a problem that's specific to movie-making in America.
Ever since I started doing television, I tended to get cast, for the most part, as these strong, intelligent women... Which is wonderful, but very rarely do I get to be the goofy girl that I am.
I guess I am attracted to older women. I'm looking for a 40-something who has had her heart broken two or three hundred times. She's going to be fun!
Women are capable of doing so many things these days, physically, emotionally, within relationships and career. There are so many things that women have evolved into and I feel really proud about where women are right now.
Sexiness is about confidence and individuality. I can't keep my eyes off the women you see in cities like London, New York and Paris - the way they carry themselves and put themselves together are always so unique.
Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.
We must be very careful when we say that somebody giving you compliments about your looks should be offensive. I think women really should look at why they're being offended by that.
I could only try to comfort the women that I came face-to-face with. I was really moved by how much they wanted to talk, how much they needed to be comforted, and how happy they were that we were there.
There's so many young women today who look so lost. And I feel like, of course they're lost. They have no one around them to give them real, authentic reflection.
My heart goes out to many women that I've met across the country who barely make enough to make a living, and they want to have kids. That's very understandable, but what do you do with the kids?
If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.
Yes. I was the first female colonel. I enjoyed being that kind of role model for young women watching the show. A woman can be a colonel! A woman can be in charge! Those were new ideas then.
Every once in awhile I like to play dark ladies, crazy ladies, but most often I look for characters that are strong, intelligent, caring - usually earth women, because that's basically how I see myself.
I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission.
I want to steer away from the stereotypes that Latina women are categorized in. I feel like there are so many more opportunities for us. I like going out for those roles that says 'open ethnicity.'
The industry is quite chauvinistic generally. Expectations of women, girls, what they should look like, how they should be, what they should say, what they should wear, how their hair should be, what colour their skin should be.
With the hugely talented women I've worked with or observed, it's not a question about temperament or ego; it's a question about getting it right. If they've got a reputation for being difficult it's usually because they just don't suffer fools.
In my sophomore year, a kid told me that the secret to getting women is to play really, really hard to get. I followed his advice, and I didn't have so much as a date that year.
I think that I do separate myself a fair amount. And I don't feel like I am representing women. That's up to however people interpret it once they sort of see it.
I'm not for every woman, you know. Because a lot of women - I mean, obviously, your first thing is, 'What do you want your guy to look like?' And I'm not the tall, dark, handsome guy.
I always loved my mother, felt loved, but she was judgmental. Her father in Ireland didn't approve of women generally, and she took on his values. She believed her own mother was foolish.
