I remember wearing the big oversized baseball and basketball jerseys and Timbaland boots. I was a tomboy growing up. I recently caught a picture of myself, and I was like, 'God! What was I thinking about?'

I've seen a lot of good things and a lot of the bad of what Hollywood can bring. At the end of the day, I've found that when you try and fit in, that's a way to go crazy; you kind of lose yourself. I'm sometimes the different one at the table, but I don't care.

TLC was so real and authentic. And that's music as a whole. When it's an artist, and it comes from the heart, and that's really who you are, the fans attach to that.

Boomerang!' I love that movie just because of Halle Berry, Robin Givens, Eddie Murphy, Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt. There were so many characters. As an actress, to see African-American actors be so diverse was different from what I was used to seeing.

It just seems like the most successful, iconic love stories are not so easy or escapist. I think the ones that stay with us and resonate are full of conflict, discord and misunderstandings 'cause that's what makes drama happen or tension even if it's a comedy.

All people are sad clowns. That's the key to comedy - and it's a buffer against reality.

I would like to play an average guy. I would have loved to play opposite John Candy in a movie. That was my dream for a long time, and sadly, now I can never realize that. But I'd like to do comedy.

People just don't laugh when their family is violated, and you don't shrug it off. You band together and you defend together. It's a funny, primitive instinct.