Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" I'm looking through old things of mine, and there was this binder from when I was 14 years old. It is essentially a dream board. It is a school binder that I had put magazine clippings on. It said, 'TV actress, fame, a picture of Halle Berry, a picture of Christina Aguilera.' I was obsessed with both of them. "

Teyonah Parris

School

Fame

Looking

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

" Ever since I was maybe nine or 10 years old, I'd say, 'I'm gonna be an actor, and I'm gonna go to Julliard, and I'm gonna be in movies.' My parents never said, 'What's your backup plan?' "

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

" 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. "

Teyonah Parris

Awesome

Feel

" 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. "

" My dad, bless his heart, always told me I was beautiful, so I was never self-conscious in that way. But when you look at the images on TV, you think you need to look like that in order to be sexy. "

Teyonah Parris

Heart

Sexy

" 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. "

" I went to middle school and high school, and my drama teacher, Ms. Cooper, basically nurtured me. It was always a part of my life, and my parents allowed it to be. "

" Whatever it is you do, study it, learn the ins and outs of it, and really work on building your craft. "

" 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. "

" Generally, when I'm going to a new project, I take my own makeup. I'll explain to them what it is that I would like. If they are receptive, we figure it out together. If they're not, I'll be going to back to my trailer and doing my own makeup. And that's the same for hair. "

" It's important, as a young person of color, to see yourself reflected in the media. "

" When you just come into a show that's already established, you feel that they're family, and they have a way of doing things and running things. "

" The person that inspired me throughout most of my childhood was Angela Bassett. "

" When I choose a role, what I'm looking for is the ability is to tell our stories. Me being a black woman, that's just a given. It's going to be a part of any role I do, making sure I tell it truthfully and nuanced and in a way that many people can relate to. "

" I think social media is a slippery slope because while you're projecting something out to people, they also project back onto you what they want to see. "

" For me, it's always about the work and the stories I'm telling and the slices of life I feel should be illuminated. "

Teyonah Parris

Feel

Work

" I was a wild child tomboy. "

" As black women, we're miles behind our white counterparts in being offered the space to create and craft female characters in major blockbuster films. "

" In my junior year of high school, I went to a boarding school for the arts: a school called the Governor's School for The Arts and Humanities. It was basically a mini-Juilliard - an intense training conservatory for the arts. "

" 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. "

Teyonah Parris

God

I See

" It was not hard for me to find guidance and motivation. I'm very blessed, and my parents were always so supportive of myself and my brother. Whatever you wanted to do, you just had to give 110 percent. So whatever that was, they supported it. "

" I love my 'Survivor's Remorse' cast. They are so funny and crazy, like a big dysfunctional family. It's so much fun, and I love the issues that we talk about on that show. We deal with nuanced and controversial issues, and we do it in a way that's funny. It's comedy. "

" You have to be resilient to be a black person in America. The thing about being resilient is being able to fall apart and pick yourself up again. And putting yourself back together, that improves on what you were before. "

" It's no coincidence that the cities with the highest rates of violence also have the highest rates of unemployment. There are not many opportunities. We have to address that, starting from the government down and the grassroots up. "

" I try to be very particular about the roles I choose and what they say and put into the universe. I try to do my part. "

" 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.' "

" I got my first relaxer when I was nine years old. This was in the '90s, and I convinced my mom to let me perm my hair so I could wear a French roll with the crimps in the front. "

" 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.' "