People in India like to touch a lot. It's not very nice for any girl to be touched by strangers wherever they want. You wouldn't do that to your sister or mother, but just because one is an actor, they think she is your property.
[My mother is] a half-Chinese, half-Jamaican woman, who grew up the ninth of nine kids, getting a law degree from Harvard. Academically brilliant, but also incredibly strong-willed and ethical. My mother was like that, my sister is, and my wife is too.
I feel now like a hinge between generations, which is strange. It just happened recently. I think it's because my daughter is so much like me at her age. I feel like I'm reliving my own mother's experience of raising me.
I just, I was in such denial within myself for the longest time, just because of the place I grew up in. Like, it wasn't common. I didn't know anybody that was gay. I think I had one gay friend in high school and she never even, like, came out. It was just, like, we all just knew.
Kate Middleton has a nice silhouette and she is the right girl for that boy. I like that kind of woman, I like romantic beauties. On the other hand, her sister struggles. I don't like the sister's face. She should only show her back.
I hate my jaw. I don't know if it's my dad's - I think I'm more like my mother, my littlest sister looks exactly like my dad and my middle sister is a mixture of the two.
For a long time, I used to think that I had a man's brain that I thought more like a man than a woman. But now I've come to realise that whatever it is I do think like, it's not like men; because men don't really think like men, they think like boys.
'Mercy,' I love conceptually because I feel like you can either think about it as if it were a girl - which it sounds like it could be about a girl - but I like to picture it as 'pleading for mercy for my career' type of thing.
I grew up in Tennessee, where no one was really hairy, and with sisters who were so beautiful - my little sister was a pageant girl. But me, I was this weird-looking hairy child. I had more than just a unibrow; I feel like I had a mustache, a goatee.
I really don't think about making fashion statements. Just like any other woman or girl, I like to dress up. I think I'm fortunate enough to be dressed by some of India's best designers and to have the opportunity to wear their wonderful creations. But I have never made a conscious effort to try and be a fashion icon or something.
Just physically, if you looked at the house that I grew up in, my mother created this greenhouse. And surrounded the entire property. And there was, like, trees and sculptures and like - it was, like, this crazy, like, secret garden space.
I've been a fortunate girl: I grew up in a family that loved me from day one. I feel well grounded and lucky from that. So everything else is a bonus, because I grew up in this family that I adored, and adored me, and I think when you have that, you are already ahead of the game in the sense of how you feel about yourself.
I get burned out on standup. But I like acting. I do like it. But sometimes you just feel like a monkey. You just feel like a complete tool. But I like it. I do like it. Stand-up is just more free. A lot more freedom because you just do what you want to do.
I think body-image issues are not just a dancer thing. I think we're much more in tune and aware because the body is our instrument and art, and we stare at ourselves in a mirror all day, but I feel like it's something that every woman experiences and every girl experiences.
I just don't feel that we've traveled very far in the realm of social equality. There just seems to be a little bit of unrest. And sometimes I think that happens when you really feel like something's about to change. Right before the moment of lift off, sometimes things feel a little bit unhinged, and that's what it feels like to me right now, both as a woman and just as a human on the planet as an American woman in America. I feel like we're on the precipice of change. I feel a little nervous.
I like that I'm in shape but still look like a woman. I don't feel like I've had to give up my femininity to be an athlete. I feel good about my body because I work hard every day, and I still look and carry myself as a woman - a strong woman.