Jodie Turner-Smith

“The first job I booked was on 'True Blood.' I played a blood siren.”

“The racial dynamics over here are fraught. White supremacy is overt. It's the reason I don't want to raise my kids here.”

“When I first started in modeling, I went back to England, and it was really hard, because I would go around to the agencies and they would be like, 'We already have one mixed-race black girl.'”

“Even with my family, I feel sort of 'other.' I'm the only one of my siblings who wasn't born in Jamaica. For a long time, I didn't feel very connected to Jamaican culture, but because I was raised so heavily with that cultural influence, I realized that my inner monologue is a Jamaican woman.”

“I didn't come to L.A. thinking, okay, I'm going to be an actor, so my progression was just kind of organic, starting in print modeling, which I was far less successful in, then acting in television commercials.”

“People are making a lot more noise about representation and diversity. But I think modeling is one of the professions where people can be kind of racist.”

“I think of L.A. as my home now, in large part because I became the entity that I am in L.A. I always say to people that my coming-of-age happened in L.A., the unraveling of the person I was pretending to be for a long time, and then finding of the person I feel like I now am.”

“I am deeply moved by sculptures of powerful women.”

“I don't really believe in coincidence.”

“What I love about my parents and Jamaican families is that exuberance we have, which I think is where I get my joy from, my energy and my attitude.”

“While I might not have a specific experience that is fully American, there is still a knowledge, something that I logically understand as a black woman and a black woman who is existing in America and a black woman who is in the diaspora that are just known quantities that I think anyone can relate to who is black.”