Teyonah Parris

“Every time I see my friends on a billboard, I'm so excited. If God can do it for me or them, he can do it for everybody.”

“You look at 'Survivor's Remorse.' Or 'Blackish.' Or Issa Rae's brilliant, funny 'Insecure,' which started out on YouTube but is now on HBO. And you see multifaceted representations of the African-American experience. It's insanely exciting.”

“It's so important... to have a variety of representation on television.”

“When they asked, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' I said, 'I want to be a model and an actress.' They said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because I can look good and get paid to do it.' That's the kind of kid I was.”

“When I looked at 'Dear White People,' you have four African-American students who are all very different and who are trying to figure out who they are. They're dealing with identity issues and crises. That is exciting to me, to see African-American young people on a page, on a screen, who are so diverse and whose stories are all so different.”

“Working with Spike Lee was a dream of mine. It was amazing to be able to collaborate with such a visionary.”

“I really feel like the stars have aligned many ways, many times for me. I have been blessed to play some awesome roles and nuanced and meaningful characters.”

“I want to continue to strive towards deepening my relationship with God and finding peace in whatever trials or circumstances I may be given.”

“It feels good to be a role model for little girls who don't often see natural hair on the red carpet.”

“You have to really understand and appreciate who are you are and know who you are and what you have to offer people - not just a man but people! This helps you have something to stand on. Know your value and what makes you valuable so you can always go back to this.”

“When I look at material, I get excited by things that are telling the truth because that's what you want to do: tell somebody else's truth.”

“I had been getting relaxers since I was eight or nine. I had no clue. It was a personal mission to really find out who am when I'm not altering myself to look like anybody else. Who am I when I wake up and I don't do anything to my hair? Who is that woman? I want to meet her. And that was what catapulted my journey into going natural.”

“When you get into this industry and the restrictions placed on women, first, and then on women on color, next? Yeah, this business comes with its challenges. But I do not shy away from those challenges.”

“As a girl, I remember looking up to pop singers, and they all had long, straight weaves and light skin. And I thought, 'That's what I have to look like if I'm going to be fierce and sexy and all those things.'”

“In working with Nick Cannon, he's such a generous guy, a generous actor, and he was very protective.”

“When you have filmmakers like Justin Simien, writers, producers, actresses like Lena Waithe, who are people of color, they're creating their own content and saying, 'You know what? We're not going to wait on someone else to tell our story. We're going to do it ourselves. You can be a part of it or not.'”