I'm a layperson. I barely got out of high school. I have no business telling people what to do or my big philosophy on life. I'm certainly not going to write any sort of memoir.

I've been going through photos of my mother, looking back on her life and trying to put it into context. Very few people age gracefully enough to be photographed through their aging.

The biggest lesson I've learned from my children is to look in the mirror at myself, not at them. I've realized that everything I've done has had an impact on them. We have to understand that they are like little paparazzi. They take our picture when we don't want them to and then they show it to us in their behavior.

Actually, the books were never a planned career path.

A child comes to see his father play, have fun, make people happy, and what does he see? He sees people booing his father for being black. They make monkey noises. They throw bananas at his teammates and all that.

In acting, there's a type of courage you're recognized for all the time. You lose 100 pounds and play a guy with AIDS, and you get rewarded. But, in life, doing what is courageous is quiet, and no one knows about it. Courage is someone making sacrifices for their family or making selfless decisions for what they hope or feel.

I think the U.S. needs a better safety net... If you're a single mum or even a dual-parent working family, what do you do if you've got a sick child?

I've been travelling, returning home for promotional appearances, and juggling it all with being the mother of a five-year-old.