I'm totally normal. I love watching movies and hanging out with my friends at my house. I still go to the mall; I love to text and go on my computer. I'm totally normal - sounds kind of boring, right?

I definitely want to play someone who's inspired me. I would love to play Aaliyah; it would be personal because I love her so much.

I love music and I love acting. I always keep that in the forefront, not all the other distractions around me.

I would like to do a music person's story, a bio. I've wanted to do Aaliyah forever. But I don't want it to always be like, 'I'm singing again in a movie.'

The type of movies that give me the heebie jeebies are thrillers, because anything that's playing with your thoughts and mind, that's scary. But one thing that they never do in horror movies that I always do is I pray. You never see them pray in horror movies.

I never try to be too sexy. People know when you're not comfortable and trying to be sexy.

As you age, you start to realize that your emotions are in your hands and not someone else's. Once you put them in someone else's hands, that's when you give them the power, and you can't change it. Only they can change it.

Anything that controls my state of mind I never really want to do because I always want to be under control. That might be part of me being a Virgo. I never want to do something that stops me from being in control of who I am and my actions.

Real faith is when you believe in something that you can't see. When things are going really bad and you can still get up and say I believe that they're gonna get better, that there's a higher lesson to what I'm going through. It can be hard sometimes, and to turn it around like that, that's true faith.

I want to present a very strong and bold image, but with femininity. I love being sweet and salty all together.

Giving back, doing motivational speeches and stuff like that, that's always made me feel good. If you repeatedly go out there, and you are the change that you want to see, then that's what you are.

We need to stop separating ourselves by how dark or how light we are.

When I was a kid, people people would always say, 'Oh you look like Chilli from TLC.' It wasn't until I did 'Akeelah and the Bee' that people started saying I looked like Angela Bassett, but before then it was Chilli.

Just do you. Go with the flow and with your life because that's you experiencing life. You being yourself is you doing your purpose, so the more we get out of the mindset of thinking there's a certain way to go about things, the more free we become.

I don't wish for anything. Wishing for a million dollars feels greedy. I just wish for the best for me.

I think people should have fun. And don't get so down on yourself. Enjoy life and be the best person you can be.

You can do anything as long as you don't stop believing. When it is meant to be, it will be. You just have to follow your heart.

I don't belong to anyone else but myself. I have to make my own decisions. Happiness is defined by me.

Don't depend on a guy for your happiness. You have to live your own life and do your own thing. That's when good things come around - when you do your own thing and you're not worried about a man. It will happen in due time.

I believe your reality is what you make it, what you choose to see, and what you choose to allow yourself to do. There are possibilities all around you - magic all around you - no matter what situation you're in.

I'd love to find a really good Brazilian project, an up and coming director or something. I wouldn't want to do the typical favela story, Brazilian cinema has a lot more to offer than just that.

I played American when I was, like, fourteen, and I was awful. I cringed the whole way through.

I think a lot of people, when they don't quite fit in in the world, use humor to combat that and to find their place in society.

I think really good drama comes down to real human emotion. That's what makes us all tick, and that's what I've always been drawn to when it comes to scripts is real human emotion and dealing with that.