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" My conscious life has all been in Kenya, and it's my point of reference. But going back to Mexico was very formative. "

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" I come from a very close class. I lucked out because drama schools are often very competitive... I have fourteen classmates. "

" I never understood who all those people are behind the actors! When you see them on the red carpet on TV, you go, 'Why does that person need such a large entourage?' And then you realize that every single person there has a role to play. "

" I am thrilled beyond words that The Academy has recognized my performance in Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave,' and I am deeply proud to be in the company of my fellow nominees. "

" My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day. "

" I learned at Yale, one of the biggest lessons was to learn how special I am and therefore how totally unspecial I am. I was special among everyone else who was special. The fact that we're all so individual and that's what makes us special. "

" The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story. "

" Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It... keeps us honest. "

" There have been rumors and rumors and rumors about my love life. That's the one area that I really like to hold close to my heart. "

" The beauty standards had nothing to do with me in Mexico. It was such a bizarre, dire time for my hair. I was living in a small town where there was not any semblance of an African community. I'd have to take the bus to Mexico City to find a woman who could braid my hair. That was two and a half hours away. "

" I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting. "

" What colonialism does is cause an identity crisis about one's own culture. "

" My father was a professor of political science and also a young politician fighting for democracy in Kenya, and when things got ugly, he went into political exile in Mexico. Then I moved back to Kenya shortly after I turned one, and I grew up in Kenya. "

" I'm interested in generating work for myself. I have trouble with this waiting-for-the-phone-to-ring lifestyle, especially after drama school, which was so creatively fulfilling. "

" In the madness, you have to find calm. "

" I had moved back to Kenya after undergrad, and I went through this crisis of, 'What is my life going to be about?' "

" I always envisioned working in film and in theater. Theater and film are not, they're not in any way substitutable. What I love about theater is so different from what I love about film, and I enjoy the craft of both. "

" Before the advent of the white man, black people were doing all kinds of things with their hair. The rejection of kinks and curls did come with the white man. "

" I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.' "

" What fame does is there is an illusion of familiarity that is cast into the world. So it's about negotiating with that illusion because, oftentimes, you encounter people who have encountered you, but you haven't encountered them. It's a little weird to find your footing. "

" I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings. "

" I thought I was going to school to be other people, but really, what I learned was to be myself - accepting myself, my strengths and weaknesses. "

" I feel privileged that people are looking up to me, and perhaps a dream will be born because of my presence. "

" I have a very ostrich mentality. I feel like I have my head in the sand so no one can see me. "

" I do my best work when I feel conviction to say something through the character I play. Always I want to have integrity and not compromise that. "

" I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did. "

" I value not being good at things, because children are not good at things. "

" Drama is my sweet spot, but the thing about being an actor is that you want to do a variety of things. I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project. "

" My father used to act in high school. He was in a production of 'Othello;' I don't know who he played, but it wasn't Othello. He would talk about it, though, and read Shakespeare to me. "

" I always love to learn new things. That's the reason I like being an actor. "

" To this day, I love eating steak tacos before going to the red carpets. "