Merle Dandridge

If I've learned one thing from my mother, my teachers, my greatest female inspirations, it's that Boundaries Are Optional.

I've been in leadership roles on Broadway, and it's one thing to lead a Broadway company - you're with those people for a year straight, and you're doing that same show, eight shows a week. It's quite another when you carry on the story... You go beyond that, and you ride the wave of a character.

I think my family sees me playing a pastor on TV and thinks that's a way of saying I have the calling, too.

I like to stretch myself and push the envelope, so anything that's new or different or not of my daily routine, I am so for.

By always looking out and always moving myself forward and being disciplined and being open to new experiences, I think that's how I was able to diversify because if it felt right to me creatively, I went for it. It didn't matter if I knew how to do that, I just did it because my creative heart felt pulled to it. That seems to have worked out.

Chicago actors and Chicago theater is some of the most authentic stuff that you will ever encounter, and I'm so proud to have come up from that. It's where I cut my teeth and where I found my passion for this work.

Greenleaf' has such great affection for the church.

Authenticity, living your truth, kindness - these are necessary virtues.

I call my culture 'kimchi and collards.'

You can have a great, deep connection with somebody and still disagree with their actions.

Greenleaf' never mocks religion. It reminds us that people in churches are human, and no one is perfect.

I was in the ministry for some time. All my family is immersed in a black church in Memphis.