Biografia

Is one of 10 African-American actresses to be nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. The others in chronological order are: Dorothy Dandridge, Diana Ross, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Viola Davis, and Quvenzhané Wallis.

Has been a fan of the singing group 'N Sync since she was a teen and has attended 23 of their concerts.

Studied psychology at Mercy College, New York City.

Her father is from Senegal. Her mother is African-American, and is originally from Georgia.

Attended The City College of New York whose alumni include Edward G. Robinson Woody Allen, Ira Gershwin, Paddy Chayefsky, Stanley Kubrick, Eli Wallach among many others.

I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don't like myself, there's no reason to even live the life. I love the way I look. I'm fine with it. And if my body changes, I'll be fine with that.

I don't know what it's like to be Precious, but--you know what?--she's not an alien to me. Not because she's a big girl. I've had to deal with difficult things in my life because of how I look. I have been made fun of for my dark skin by my older brother - he has lighter skin. In school the lighter-skinned or pretty girls would make fun of me. I don't know what it's like here or other places, but in the US it's definitely a big deal. Darker-skinned people sit at the back of the church, you know?

When I was younger, anything that went wrong was the end of the world. But as I've gotten older, I've learned to stop myself and say, 'Hey , babe, calm down. Tomorrow there will be sun.'

People are always like 'wow you are so strong,' but I think of it is my strength came from weakness in a lot of ways [...] because I just got so tired, it was like being beaten. That's what made me kind of start to stand up, for myself.

Well, today I get a lot of people telling me how beautiful I am and it is very strange from going from the only person who ever believed that, to hearing that on a constant basis. And I feel like it's not like a weird cockiness thing, but because I had to train myself to believe it and I really do believe it, but I had to work at it. So, it's hard for me to say 'thank you' in a lot of ways because, I always thought of it as secret that only I knew, 'only I know I'm beautiful, you don't know what you're talking about.' It's very strange and I have to accept it.