I was a super tomboy growing up.

There have been times where I have been playing a 16-year-old, and people have been like, 'She still looks 12.' I'm like, 'I'm 22. What do you mean I don't look 16?' So I'm comfortable just rocking my young body.

As a kid, I would always shop for my back-to-school clothes at department stores. I lived in a small town, and department stores were all we had access to.

I've kissed in the rain so many times. I think one of my first kisses was in the rain. It was in Washington, D.C., with some kid named Dash, in eighth grade. It was in the rain.

Losing both parents at a young age gave me a sense that you can't really control life - so you'd better live it while it's here. I stopped believing in a storybook existence a long time ago. All you can do is push in a direction and see what comes of it.

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.

You are free to give life meaning, whatever meaning you want to give it.

I always want to tell the truth. It doesn't have to be a pretty truth, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing and life-threatening truth like 'Chi-Raq.' But I want to tell someone's truth in an effort to inspire people to see themselves reflected on the screen.