Going to rehearsals of school plays got me out of science. It became clear what inspired me and what dampened my spirit. The only other thing I could do at school was trampolining - it didn't seem to have much future in it.
I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.
Lucky enough, through the public school system, I had been able to have some music education, and that gave me something to focus on, and discipline - like a family to feel part of. There was a healthy family.
Some of my high school teachers did remind me that I had an excellent imagination when it came to making up excuses.
Several elementary school teachers had described me as a 'future authoress or poetess.' Mother took me to meet Chicago's leading black librarian, who published a poem of mine in the magazine she edited for Negro children.
My father was a builder. During my high school years, I worked for him. One summer, I was working with a guy who had just come back from Vietnam and had been a tunnel rat. He wouldn't talk about the experience, but it sounded really scary to me.
Not only do I not drive, I don't have my driver's license; there's a story there, but the upshot is that I spent my high school years an ardent environmentalist and workout junkie who wanted to save the environment, burn calories, and have my boyfriends drive me around.
Yeah. I mean, it just seemed to me that it was - I felt so helpless to this business of not having any papers. That seems like a throwback to a schoolboy.
Even when I was growing up as a young boy, when I was playing schoolboy football, there were other guys who were as good as I was, maybe some even better technically. But I was prepared to stick to what was going to make me become a professional football player when I left school, and that was a lot of sacrifice and because my attitude was right.
I'm home schooled, and I have a teacher that goes with me on all my movies.
We were only there for five days and during that time Tom was a bit annoyed that the French were more interested in me and my schoolgirl outfit than him and his long scarf.
My father was a schoolteacher, and so I had the advantage of both western educational instruction in the school, as well as what you might call the process of imbibing the traditional processes of education instruction around me.
My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.
They expect a certain amount of leniency or mercy from me because I'm a woman, and if you've ever met my mother, you should know that's not even in the cards. She's much tougher than I am - she's a retired schoolteacher, so she's seen it all.
How dare anyone, parent, schoolteacher, or merely literary critic, tell me not to act colored.
In my head, I was like any young kid: 'I'm going to be a footballer.' But at the same time, my mum and dad were making me do my schoolwork, and that was important.
I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.
I usually balance school by doing online classes and regular classes - that has helped me a lot, and I'm able to get my schoolwork done while I'm traveling too.
I think it's really important for artists in general to invest in themselves. And I view my schoolwork as something I'm investing in for me. And I'm my own product as an actor. There's a kind of career that I want, and I feel like I'm making choices to obtain that.
I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?
