When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.

I am not a bimbo actress like some people out there have made me look like.

I am not going to fiddle taxes. I pay my accountant a fortune to look after me.

People look at me and think I am an expert in the automobile industry, and I'm not.

I don't want to be the person who has the gigantic headlines: 'Look Who So-and-So Is Dating Now.' That, to me, isn't really who I am.

The way I analyze a script, I don't look at how many days I have off. I see how far they're going to push me. That's just the way I am.

I am not a technical drummer at all. I'm more from the Keith Moon/Lars Ulrich school of, 'Hey, look at me!' I just get up there and bash.

If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.

I am so broad and big-structured that even two kilos on me can look like gaining 10 kilos, and losing two kilos can also look like shedding 10 kilos.

When people meet me in person, they're usually surprised at how petite I am because there's this idea that because I'm black, I just look a certain way.

I suppose I am one: an activist - for animals and a vegan lifestyle. I hear that word, however, and look around to see if someone is indeed referring to me.

For me, I like to look presentable when I'm outside. I'm not going to come to the office with nasty hair and pajamas just because I stayed up all night - that's just who I am.

I'm black. I'm gay. I'm culturally Christian. I am a walking target on so many levels, and it is horrifying and a cross that very, very many of us who look like me have to bear.

Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

I travel a lot. If you look at my suitcase, everything is extremely well-packed and well-folded; people who travel with me are impressed at how organized I am. Some would refer to me as a maniac for this.

For me, there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.

There is a lesson there about greed and it is a lesson I am willing to learn as well. Has it made me a distrustful person? I don't think so. But we probably look a bit more carefully at our financial situation now.

When I moved in, I said, 'I don't care how this makes me look or sound: I am converting one of these bedrooms into a shoe closet.' It's become more of a dressing room, but one wall is shoes in their perfect cubbies.

But the most precious research to me came from the paperwork filed on behalf of my grandparents and great-grandfather. The ship's manifest showed that they could read and write. I am still emotional when I look at those boxes checked yes.

I look for something that can challenge me or makes me ever so slightly afraid - fearful of how I am going to approach it - then I'll go for it. If the project appears linear or predictable, then I'll usually give it a miss. Anything that involves me being stretched as an actor, I go for.

There are moments when I am really not happy with how I look, or I think it would be an easy way out to try and do the conventionally attractive thing. But part of it is that I don't have the energy to put on, like, makeup. If people want to do that, that's fine. But I've learned that it's not for me.

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