These rooms are decorated in two days. It's all kept secret. The neighbors spend the night in each other's home. They don't see their finished room until the end of the second day. They have no say what happens in their own home.

A lot of my dreams have to do with animals I think because I'm such a huge animal lover. I have so many pets. I always have crazy dreams where I'm like riding an elephant through the jungle or hanging out with a bunch of monkeys.

The house I grew up in had large plate-glass windows, which birds frequently crashed into headfirst. My father helped me assemble a bird hospital, consisting of a few shoe boxes, some old rags, and tiny dishes for water and food.

I have been hearing gossip and lies since I began working. When I was 17, I used to get very angry because I opened a magazine and I saw myself in a picture on a motorcycle, and the headline was, 'I'm getting married next month.'

Often, as a young actress, you find yourself being the only girl in a room full of men... and one of the reasons why I like 'Grey's Anatomy' is because they have such strong female characters and the women really drive this show.

My first modeling job in Paris, the photographer said, 'Tue es belle,' which means, 'you are pretty,' and I thought he said, 'Tu es poubelle,' which means, 'you are the trash can.' I burst into tears. He was not happy about that.

It can be a huge help to parents considering the adoption of an older child, when college is just a few years away, to know that there are post-adoption resources and specific financial assistance opportunities available to them.

Somewhere within the concept of justice, the worst of the guilty must always be removed. I cannot divorce this, not completely. The people must have justice and so I want to reinstate and enshrine the blessed and holy guillotine!

I would love to do anything involving a good strong character, whether it's in film, TV or theatre. My dream role's already been taken by Keira Knightley in 'Pride and Prejudice.' Growing up, I really wanted to be Lizzie Bennett.

I respect the fact that a director has studied the text and the road map of work before us, the subtleties, interconnections, underpinnings... His job is to paint the entire picture and knows all the colors that have to be in it.

To me, the producing falls into the same as acting. It requires so much time out of your life, and I take it very personally, I realize, so if I do something, it just has to be something I love and I don't want anyone else to do.

Sometimes the director will want you to write about the character, sometimes he'll want you to live in the location that the character is from or something like that, but I don't usually make a lot of notes or anything like that.

In fact, if they didn't let me commute, I would not have taken the role because I wanted to graduate high school with my classmates. I remember my agent's jaw dropping when I told him if I couldn't commute I didn't want the role.

So the first season about halfway through he just sort of put us together and then broke us up all within one episode. One of the ideas is to have us do that once a year - to have everything blow up in our faces and not work out.

Friends are hard to come by in L.A., especially in the entertainment industry. I've known a lot of people who hang out with someone because they're working on a show, and as soon as that show gets canceled, they find someone new.

As a woman, I have an inherent need to be all things to all people, to make certain everybody's taken care of. I know I can't sustain that level all the time, so I'm finding the proper balance and it's made me infinitely happier.

I'm fascinated by twins. It's such an interesting thing. I'm an only child, so I don't have a sibling. But, if you think about the bond that siblings have, that intensifies so much when you think about being in the womb together.

Five minutes before I went on, I looked at my manager and said, I'm going to get booed. I know it's going to happen. And you're responsible because you put me on here. It was horrible. I've never been more hurt in my entire life.

You lie when you're a teenager, I think, because your parents are treating you like you're younger and you - in your mind - think that you're so much older. You make up all of these lies because you think it's what you should do.

I was at an all-girls' school, so there were a lot of us who were really awkward. I was this tall when I was 11, so I was really awkward and self-conscious. No one would really have wanted to be mean to me. I was too unimportant.

Every time you enter into a job it's a whole new universe. There's a new language with a new power structure. If you are in an all Black cast its a different dynamic, the same with an all male cast or a crew that is mainly women.

We live in a fast-paced culture where we're asked to make snap decisions all day long, so I suppose cash-point donations feed into the immediacy of our life experience. So it's a great idea. But I think it needs careful handling.

I would go visit my mom on Sundays, and my brother was working on stuff. I'd go in there and sing a little melody, then we started working with words and the next thing you know it was just born organically without really trying.

Going to set, every day, and working with the incredible actors I get to work with is fulfilling. I've been doing this since I was nine years old, so it's always been something that I've been passionate about. It's always fed me.

Don't take advice from single people. No shade to everybody in here that's single, but I say that from one point, being the single girl that just knew it all. In the long run, I had to learn. I had to be able to give that chance.

A large part of my filmmaking self has to do with my love of being in the cinema audience, and my relationships to what I want to see on the screen, what I have seen on the screen and what I don't want to see on the screen again.

I've always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it's not the lines you say that are important - it's what exists between the lines. What I'm compelled by most is that transparency of thought, what is left unspoken.

Certainly with The Crucible, what I love is that every role in that is so crucial.But there's something almost comic. I remember there's that line where she says, "I am 18 and a woman, however single," which killed me every time!

We had already planned my wedding when my brother passed away in 2012. When you're grieving, you don't necessarily want to think about something like that, but my brother told me that he wanted me to, so we went ahead and did it.

I'm a big fan of, like, wearing old, vintage slips and stuff as outdoor wear. I got, like, a pair of these little silk bloomers. I think they were even, like, considered underwear in the '40s. I wore them as shorts the other day.

I think breeds of dogs and breeds of men are quite a bit alike. If you think it’s insulting that I compare people with animals, well, if you knew how I love animals, you would understand that coming from me, this is a compliment.

I can't control what's fair and unfair. I can't control the nature of the business or the nature of society or the nature of the world, but what I can control is how I choose to see the world and what I choose to put back into it.

Through a long and painful process, I've learned that happiness is an inside job - not based on anything or anyone in the outer material world. I've become a different and better person - not perfect, but still a work in progress.

You never know when you're going to die in the show - it's kind of funny when you say that out of context, "I don't know when I'm going to die" - but you don't have time to have an ego or an attitude because you just get the chop.

I think love is something you figure out later on in life, and you have to make a lot of mistakes to figure out what love is, which is why we all have shitty, tumultuous relationships when we're younger, and it's harder to let go.

So many things could go wrong, on any film. I've been out in L.A. for eight years and I've been acting professionally for a long time, and you realize that you have to prepare and work hard, but you never know what could go wrong.

You hear all these great stories about kids starting their own businesses and getting involved in their communities and politics and foundations - all kinds of things. And it's so much easier for kids to get motivated and do that.

I've wanted to act since I was little, but my parents told me I couldn't pursue it until after college. The understanding was that I was lucky enough to be able to go to college and that it's important to being successful in life.

'Now I've tasted chocolate I'm not going back'. That's a great line. That's not me, that's all the writing. I mean it's like it doesn't matter who plays it, it's a great role. It's such a funny, tongue in cheek kind of great role.

It's a tiny revolution to express yourself fully and be who you want to be, especially when systems tell you that you can't. I've realized how powerful it is for me to just discuss issues with young people and begin conversations.

How much time have I wasted on diets and what I look like? People are saying 'We love you and love what you do' and you're sitting there thinking 'I'm not skinny enough or pretty enough.' It's taken a lot of work to get over that.

I worked at an ice cream parlor called Chadwicks. We wore old-timey outfits and had to bang a drum, play a kazoo, and sing 'Happy Birthday' to people while giving them free birthday sundaes. Lots of ice cream scooping and $1 tips.

The three things I said when I came out of school were I want to work consistently, I want to do good work and I want to be paid fairly, and that's happened. But I didn't become an actress for the money. I do it for other reasons.

On second marriage: It took me by surprise, too, because overnight, we totally changed. I think one day we had just nothing in common. And it's scary but I think it can happen when you get involved and you don't know yourself yet.

I entered this business before I had focus and purpose in my life. I was very unhappy, very unhealthy, and when I sat down for an interview, I didn't know why. I felt like I didn't have anything to share. It was a very empty time.

Because of the generation in which I came into the world, there were expectations. Of course there were expectations. It was something having to do with being a respectable Negro woman who would make the people in Baltimore proud.

Eating at home is important for us, because we eat out so much when we're away. When I'm at home I cook a lot and we eat pretty healthily. I'm not a massive vegetable fan - I've got better since I discovered how to undercook them.

Ailee, to me, is just such a talented, powerful voice. She's sexy; she's beautiful. I'm a huge fan. I like her a lot. I really hope she keeps going at it. I really like her song 'I Will Show You.' To me, she has that Beyonce vibe.

There is beauty in living in a small space, as a child. Some aspects of it are so beautiful, and it's so nice to not see the darkness. But then, in other ways, there's a whole range of experience that's being missed because of it.

I always considered myself bi-racial, because I didn't want to disconnect from either side, and I felt very strongly about that. Now, I understand that the world sees me as a black woman, a person of color, and I'm okay with that.

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