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City Year resonated with me because when I grew up, we were poor - and an education is a way out of poverty. It's a way out of the current situation that can seem isolating and hopeless for some kids.
When I was a kid, we never had a videogame in my house. But my cousin did, and each time I went to her house I was able to play 'Tetris' and 'Mario.' Those were the only two games I played as a child.
I'm very influenced by documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking, by a lot of noir and films from the '40s. Those are my favorite. And then, filmmaking from the '70s is a big influence for me.
Well, since I'm six years old, I've been playing the violin, the piano, I've been singing. It's always been a dream of mine, but I really never had the courage to actually go and do it professionally.
First, I think of myself as a brand, a businesswoman. Musician is something I just do because it's my passion - I love it and it's something I do for fun. I love music and I love to make people dance.
It was always my dream, to do a leading role on Broadway. It's what I went to college to do, in hopes of one day someone taking a chance on me and saying, 'You know what? You're going to be our girl.'
There are some great roles mostly in Shakespeare's tragedies which no one can play at full strength from beginning to end. One simply hopes that one can hit the peaks as often as one has the strength.
I'm very honored to play one of the women in the movie Volver, and it was special acting with all those other talented actresses. Carmen Maura is a legend and it was a thrill to make a movie with her.
I'm strong and opinionated. Those qualities brought me a lot of problems since I was a little girl in school, saying 'I don't agree' and fighting with the children. It's part of my curiosity for life.
I don't mind if somebody texts me but I'm not a big texter, the things are too small. I don't mind if they text, '7 o'clock,' that's fine, that's logistics but, 'What's up?' Get real! Pick up a phone!
My parents are my role models. I also love Halle Berry, Robert DeNiro, Eddie Murphy, Angela Bassett, Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lopez. When I see their work, I get engulfed in it. They really capture me.
I'd always ask my grandma, who was so, so smart, why she didn't work, and she would explain that her parents didn't approve of her working after she had children. She didn't feel like she had choices.
Once you've reached the point where you can pay rent, you can go to the vet and you can go to the grocery store, after that point it's all the same. I don't have the appetite for a decadent lifestyle.
Everyone enjoys music and film. It just makes people happy or makes them feel things. We're not saving peoples' lives, but if we are entertaining them, that's as much as I can contribute in this life.
In the case of 'The Bible' series and now 'Son of God,' it has been a combination of what I love to do and what I believe. To be able to do that with the person I love has just really been a blessing.
Broadway producers are happy to have a big Hollywood name they can post on the marquee, but most of them assume that television and film stars really can't handle stage work. Too often, they're right.
I grew up, and I was bullied and very insecure. I hope, if nothing else, if I share enough of my struggle and share what I went through and allow myself to be vulnerable, I'll let people see who I am.
It takes a long time to free oneself from chatter - goals, social media, image, persona. And if you're able to move through in that way, you can actually start trying to create from a different place.
I look at composers and conductors, anybody involved in music or writing or art in general; they got more done as they got older. If I can, I'll be one of those people because what I do is my passion.
I think that as is true in this industry, everything gets blown out of proportion because it's more fun for people to read about. It's even more fun to read about if the stories get wilder and wilder.
When you look at something that's so extraordinary, like a man who is traveling back in time to prevent JFK's assassination, for me as an actor, you're still trying to seed it in some sort of reality.
I find it so ironic that all you do, for the earliest part of your life, is try to be like everybody else. And then you turn 30, and you realize all you want to do is distinguish yourself in some way.
I like taking parts where I'm like: "I don't know how I'm going to do this exactly but I know I can do it." As opposed to doing something where you go: "There's nothing that I can contribute to this."
This is a very superficial job. I sit in a chair for two hours and get hair and makeup done and talk about myself in interviews. That's a very vain thing to do. And I do get caught up in it sometimes.
You can have terrible things happen in your family. A husband and wife can be having a knock-down, drag-out fight and the minute one of the kids gets hurt, the fight is over and it's about the family.
After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
I don't like to run. I don't like to jump up and down. Being a big girl and having a bosom, I injure myself! It upsets me, I have to hold my two things. I just can't jog, there's something in the way.
That's the insecurity with our job, because you never know where the next role is coming from. No matter how successful you are, there's always a fear of someone not wanting me to play something else.
My father was an ironworker who eventually co-founded a construction business. My mother, Jeanette, was a stay-at-home mom who had been an operating-room nurse until my older brother, Jimmy, was born.
Throughout my life, I have tried to share my philosophy that getting and staying healthy doesn't have to feel like work. I don't diet or slave away in a gym - what I do is make excellent food choices.
I will normally eat about seven or eight mince pies in one sitting. Sometimes, I can get to double figures. My friends, and probably most people, stop at two, so they probably dislike me a bit for it.
Dad was a retired chemist who, in his 60s, fathered and fed me and my two sisters while Mum worked as a secretary. He made us curries, Chinese meals and strange concoctions. He was often unsuccessful.
I danced in a company of 'West Side Story' when I was very young. It was most of the original cast - Larry Kert, Chita Rivera - and Jerry Robbins directed. It was tough, a wonderful initiation for me.
I didn't care at all about losing, but I just didn't want Emerson to feel bad, You know, I didn't win, but Felicity won, and when you come to the set next time, you can give her a big congratulations.
As a child, I spent a lot of time alone. I used to sit in my closet with one cracker. I'd pretend that I was on the North Pole freezing to death, and I had to somehow survive on this one tiny cracker.
There is something insane about a lack of doubt. Doubt - to me, anyway - is what makes you human, and without doubt, even the righteous lose their grip, not only on reality but also on their humanity.
My favorite day at 30 Rock is Thursday, when the show airs. At lunch we screen the episodes. For everyone to watch together, to see the stuff we all worked on, to hear the crew laugh - it’s great fun.
A new study suggests that middle-aged adults who go on periodic drinking binges may face a heightened risk of dementia later on in life. The study is entitled, 'National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.'
I think that the Japanese culture is one of the very few cultures left that is its own entity. They're just so traditional and so specific in their ways. It's kind of untouched, it's not Americanized.
'Blackish' is set in current times. So, doing a police brutality episode in current times when kids are watching our show, it gives them an access point to have these kinds of conversations as family.
Talk about a woman of a certain age - Pearl Buck was a great prototype of continuing to work. She was in the hospital dying of cancer, and in the next room was her secretary, typing out her next book.
There's nobody telling Oprah what to do. There's no one telling David Letterman what he can and can't do. You've got to have 100 percent support from everybody who's behind the show, across the board.
It feels like my hard work has paid off, but at the same time, I still have the impostor, you know, syndrome. I still feel like I'm going to wake up, and everybody's going to see me for the hack I am.
I am scared of spiders! And I still get a little afraid every time I have to do something new or have to get out in front of a big crowd. The first time I sang "Swag It Out" live, I was really scared.
Music has always helped me stay creative and grounded because I'm traveling and shooting and trying to understand other people. Music was something I could just sit in a room and make with my friends.
Sometimes it's less about the character and more about the story for me. I'll play a rock in the background if I think the story is fantastic and I can be a part of it somehow. That's what I look for.
The whole Hollywood thing where people want to put me into this 'quirky-fashionista, daughter of' category makes me mad because it's promoting something that I don't believe in, and it's not who I am.
When I exercise, I like to take lots of different classes because I want to really apply myself and feel like I'm learning a new skill. Not that I ever want to have to demonstrate any of those skills!
Our thoughts really do create our lives. They've done a lot of research showing if you're an optimistic, positive person you will be a healthier person than if you're a sad, depressed, negative person.
I was the child who would leave school and take her clothes off the second I got into the house. I made my mom buy me lingerie when I was 5 years old. I was a sicko. My mother must have been mortified.