Television has embraced so much in terms of storytelling and in terms of a wide array of characters conveying stories from different points of view.
— Aja Naomi King
I'm at a place where I want to have fun. I want to be challenged. I want to love the people I work with and continue to appreciate being in the position to work and play and explore.
By high school, I was telling everyone, 'Oh, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up,' because my dad was always saying to me, 'Pick a career path where you're always going to be necessary.' But by junior year, I was president of choir, I was the lead in the school play, and I just loved being onstage performing.
Strength doesn't mean an absence of pain.
Being on a show with a female lead is amazing for me. I love that.
My ideal date would involve a park or rowing in those little boats on a lake.
I've never given my phone number to someone on the street, but when someone is a gentleman, I appreciate the compliments.
Your artistry is a muscle that needs to be exercised, so if all you are doing is auditioning, you'll never get the satisfaction of fulfilling the need to play the part.
I always think - when I get mad, and people say, 'Don't be the angry black woman' - it's like, well, why not? There's so much to be angry about.
I'm obsessed with eyeliner - the darker and kohl-ier, the better.
Love is a complicated emotion because you can learn something or hear something that goes against what you have come to know personally. It can be very challenging to what you believe.
I've been trying to eat healthier, but sometimes it doesn't work out when you're sitting in front of the TV drinking wine, and you realize you really need ice cream to go along with it.
I come from a family of storytellers. Growing up, my father would make up these stories about how he and my mother met and fell in love, and my mother would tell me these elaborately visual stories of growing up as a kid in New York, and I was always so enrapt.
Sometimes people just need to feel heard, and being an actor has taught me to really listen.
I want to write. I want to direct. I want to produce - I want to inhabit what I think it means to fully be an artist.
When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you're waiting and waiting and waiting, once you're actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.
If I had a free afternoon, I would play music, sit in my backyard, and drink coffee.
You don't know what's gonna happen, so you can't really plan: you can only go with it.
I majored in theater, so I'd love to get back on a stage.
When I was younger, my mother tried to get me an agent because I was always singing and dancing, but whenever she took me to an audition, I would just shut down.
If you ask two people to remember a specific event, the stories are going to vary wildly because we always make ourselves out to be the hero.
I really appreciate that: to walk into an environment where everyone is serious and dedicated to creating the best performance possible and challenging themselves to figure out the most interesting way to approach the work.
I love thigh highs, heels, shorts, or a skirt.
I do everything on my phone!
In this day and age, when there are so many people creating work online and writing their own shows, I wouldn't tell another actor, 'If you can do anything else go do that.' I would tell them to figure out the story they want to tell, to figure out what artists inspire you and why, and then figure out a way you can create that for yourself.
To meet someone who wants to fight to just tell the truth about what's happening in government... this is a real life superhero right here.
When I was younger, it was harder for me to find a black eyeliner that would actually show up on my skin. Being a dark-skinned woman, when you find something that actually shows up on your face, you love it even more.
It was a given at UCSB that if there was a role that called for a person of color, it was going to be handed to me. There were certain times when maybe I didn't try as hard. Going to Yale was a way more diverse experience.
To relax, I love sitting back and turning my brain off and watching TV.
Create something for yourself that you feel proud of, that you are in control of, that gives you a better understanding of the type of artist you want to be.
Studying acting has been personally enriching because it has taught me to take the time to imagine what someone else's life experience might be like. To look deeply at how our pasts and the circumstances of our early childhoods mold us as people.
As artists, we thrive when we can express our comfort and our discomfort. If a certain scene is really challenging for us, if we're in an environment where we feel safe, we're able to do our work.
I thought I was going to be on Broadway. I thought, 'I'm going to do theater.'
I have a girl crush on Olivia Munn so much, especially on 'Newsroom.' And Cara Delevingne, but who doesn't love her face? Viola Davis is my acting crush.
I'm a little bit of a control freak, so it's been nice to learn to let go and just trust others.
There are people who do what they believe is right, but as they say, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.'
It's such a big deal, the notion that these enslaved Africans had marriages and children... because therein lies our humanity, our capacity for love.
If all we remember are good things, then happiness is our baseline, and there's no longer happiness. We need other feelings in order to appreciate others.
I was getting in my own way. I would quit jobs and step out on hope and faith, and pray to God that I would book something that would allow me to just continue to act.
My favorite spot to hang out is my home.
I have a lovely light blue Kate Spade wallet. It has pockets for many credit cards, business cards, health insurance cards, and a Burke Williams card for when I want to go to the spa!
I saw 'Birth' at the Sundance Film Festival with a thousand other strangers, and I couldn't believe that was me in the film. I didn't recognize myself.
I use Pureology Shampoo and Conditioner, and after shampooing, I'll put the conditioner on, go watch a movie, and wash it out later. When you have black girl hair, once we wash, we've gotta do the whole press and get in the edges and everything. That's a lot of heat to go back to straight on a daily basis.
I love Haagen Daaz Caramel Cone, or the Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake. Pairs well with anything.
It gets a little crazy at Disneyland. It's a little bit more hardcore then people think.
My hair routine is to let someone else do it.
The advice that I was always given when asking for advice about acting was that if I could imagine myself doing anything else, anything else at all, then go do that.
The problem of sexism is getting better, but I don't know if it's getting better fast enough. We see more roles for women that don't entirely revolve around the way in which they function in a man's life, but typically those women are almost always white, and even then, there are only a few of them.
Sometimes as human beings, we're so contradictory - we may say something or do something and completely contradict ourselves. That's what I'm learning to embrace in television - not knowing what's going to happen.
A man should be well groomed. If you're going to have facial hair, it should be a choice, not an accident.
