So now I feel I'm lucky in the respect that I can sort of pick a little more carefully, which is tricky because as a black actress, there aren't that many roles to pick from.
Which is why I felt I was truly blessed this year, with leads in two nice films, and also the luxury of being able to do a studio film and an independent afterwards was fantastic.
When you work on a movie, you just have no idea how it's going to come out; you hope it's good, but you don't really know, and you don't see it until about six or nine months afterward, and I saw it and was pretty pleased.
We filmed one scene on the beach and there was definitely weird energy around, and we were followed around by a white owl to several different locations, and little things like that, or certain mishaps would happen and you'd have to wonder what that was about.
That's double-edged: it's amazing that they're bringing me in and showing people new ideas, and at the same time it's a little hard because seventy percent of the time or even higher I'm not going to get those roles.
In the end, I play a lot of friends and I really think it's about time that some ethnic girls get out there in the lead part. So we're developing something.
For six months I'd do movies and make it all about me. Then the other six months, it's not about me and it doesn't matter what my hair looks like or what anything looks like.
Editing is a natural extension of the collage making. It's actually one of the few areas that women were able to excel in in the film industry from the beginning.
And I can relate to that, because I went to an all white school, so I knew what that was like. And it was hard at the time, but anything that's difficult you learn from, don't you?
