Lorraine Toussaint

My job as an actor is to cover and expose in varying allowance that - so that the audience can peek through the window to the people I create.

I've become very fond of the law. I've always been an advocate for justice, which occasionally the law brings to light.

I am so proud of Amelia Boynton. I can burst with pride.

I think if I weren't an actress, I might have made a halfway decent attorney! I like the way they think.

We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework, and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite.

Once I'm on set, the only thing I'm really interested in is being in the room. Being present. And trusting that what I've done is sufficient, and I'm also trusting that I've also left room for magic.

Sometimes the character will go into a completely different direction than I expected once the cameras start rolling. That's what I love about what I do.

I love to see how a character unfolds off the page in a project. I don't always know how the character is going to turn out, even with the script being there. It's not always clear where that character is going to take me. Or where I will take them.

When you're playing a real character, you want to honor that person and receive inspiration from that person. They need to anoint you in some way that allows you to borrow just a small piece of their soul. That is the flame.

How well I walk my talk, and not talk my talk, determines the quality of my engagement, of all my experience with what is quite personally my God. I'm my greatest teacher, and within me, I have the power to push myself deeper and higher.

I hope that whenever my daughter has a negative experience, I'm there to talk about it and remind her how we feel when it's done to her so that she doesn't do it to others.

I meditate. I've been a meditator since, I think I was doing it unofficially before all my life and then began to formalize it somewhere around 14.