A black woman’s handbook in this industry is, ‘Whoa.’ The chapter on ‘Don’t go there.’ The chapter on ‘How to say that nicely,’ how to express that you don’t like something so that you don’t lose the opportunity – which is what we’re doing all day long.
I came up as a number 2 hitter. My first year I hit 16 homers, and I was like, Whoa, I’m rollin’!
There was no joke I could make that was too offensive. I can actually remember at least one time where my mother told me something that, I was like, ‘whoa!’
The first album I was given when I was quite young was the ‘Whoa, Nelly!’ album by Nelly Furtado. After, I also got the ‘Missundaztood’ album by Pink. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to be just like them!’
I want to make a movie where people are, like, ‘Whoa.’
I’ve never been willing to lie about my age. Why on earth would I want to tell people I’m 35, which I’m not, and have them say, ‘Oh that’s nice,’ when I could tell them I’m 47, which I am, and have them look at me and go, ‘Whoa!’. I’m not afraid of aging. I stopped being afraid of life a long time ago.
When Shaq gave me the nickname, it wasn’t no Joe-Bob giving you a nickname. This is Shaq. It was like, whoa.
There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they’re eight years old and they go, ‘Whoa, this is incredible,’ and grow up to do extreme sports. It’s the same for me with acting.
We had a music teacher in sixth grade, and I saw her tune her guitar. I said, ‘Whoa. There’s a certain way to do this.’ I bought a packet of strings – some of mine were broken – and had her tune it for me. For a while, I just kept it like that. But I got the Internet finally, when I was 14, and started learning.
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