My own brand will stand or fall because of me. Dior won't fall if I fall. It will also still stand if I'm not there. I'm coming in there, and it's like a - I don't know the English word - like a passage.
I was raised in a very happy nest by very happy people, and I like to think that those are enough ingredients to make me succeed at Dior.
I worked with the best - Givenchy, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent - and it gave me an ability to be confident. It turned me into a CEO and a creative director and a brand.
The fact that designers like Lagerfeld, Gaultier, Galliano and Dior could believe in Alek made me believe in myself, too.
For me, acting was always a way to explore emotions - to dip into the well and really try to reach rock bottom down there. That was the most exciting part of it. I hadn't found anything that really allowed me to do that until I came upon acting.
I want to dip my foot in some acting. And most definitely want to mentor upcoming artists and give them the wisdom that was given to me.
With my first single, 'AM to PM,' I was just this cute 18-year-old. But 'cute' didn't get me older roles, and 'cute' wasn't selling records. I wanted people to see that I'd grown up, so I did 'Dip It Low.'
'Dip it Low' is pretty highly requested for me. I get that a lot.
People look at me as sort of a diplomat for Turkey, which by nature, I'm not; I don't want to be. It's again about that playfulness. Being Turkey's voice or representative is not playful, it's not childlike; it makes me self-conscious, kills the child in me.
I went off to a school with the children of CEOs and diplomats. To be able to be at home with that group of people and at home with the desperately poor has been good for me in preparation for my coming to Washington.
I'm definitely gonna do another solo record at some point. 'Flamingo' wasn't just me dipping my toes in the water. I really loved it. It was successful, and that helps, but I love those songs, and I miss singing them.
I'll fly Away took place in the 50's and 60's in America's South, and there are a couple of scenes where me and my friends are supposed to be skinny dipping with these girls.
I don't want to take the escalators. Give me the stairs that have the dips and the two old ladies that are blocking it and they've got an attitude, and they don't want you to go past them.
The beauty standards had nothing to do with me in Mexico. It was such a bizarre, dire time for my hair. I was living in a small town where there was not any semblance of an African community. I'd have to take the bus to Mexico City to find a woman who could braid my hair. That was two and a half hours away.
I want everything to be an honest extension of me. What better way than me talking? It's a direct connection with everyone. With film and television, you make great projects, but stand-up is the thing that is completely yours.
My cell phone is the number one way for me to communicate with my fans. I love the direct connection I can make via social media whether I am on the road or at home.
With my skin, I have to avoid direct contact with the sun, so that, combined with my mom being conservative, meant I grew up wearing stockings under shorts and long sleeves under tank tops. It was kind of embedded in me that I was supposed to be covering up.
Practicing medicine is not only my vocation, it gives me an opportunity to continue to be in direct contact with people, to see them and hear their needs.
Growing up, my dad would be gone a lot. But I knew what he was doing, and I wanted to one day enjoy that. When I saw how tired he was when he got home, that, in a direct way, prepared me and made me realize what a tough business this is.
I love doing concerts. For me, it's the favorite thing I do. I get to communicate with the audience in a direct way.
