Grace Gealey

The greatest lesson I have learned in life is that I am enough simply because I have been given life. Growing up, I constantly found myself trying to please others because I wanted to be included and validated. I expended myself completely. ”

Because of the fact that being a professional actor is not a career that is widely pursued back home in the Cayman Islands, I never thought it was a viable profession. It didn't even cross my mind. So when I knew I wanted to do theater, I didn't think 'actress,' even though I loved to perform. ”

We may not know what each day has in store for us. We could be gone tomorrow. Any minute could truly be our goodbye. But we do have this moment. This time. Today. Right now. It takes way more effort to shell out hate then it does to allow love to flow freely in our lives. After all, it's what we were born to do. ”

I don't have time to beat myself up over my fallible nature. Instead I use my energy to learn from my past and let it inform my future. It's time to own all of our glory, mistakes, mess and light and be gentle to ourselves. Let's be kind to our spirits and celebrate the truth of our hearts. ”

As a child, I was always interested in drama and performance. ”

Back home, we watch a lot of movies, and that was never available to us. When I came to America, I was like, 'No, it's really coming out this Friday? Not three months from now?' ”

When I came to America, that's when I started to feel that there was a lot of push-back from women. I was definitely made aware that I am light-skinned. I realized that was a thing here. ”

There's something scary, knowing that in Florida, someone can pick you up in a car and drive you to 50 states. Back home, it's like, 'Girl, you're 15 minutes away.' ”

As a kid, I was obsessed with Meryl Streep, and I still am. ”

Everybody has a different journey. Everybody has a different path, and you don't really know what to expect. All you know is to just keep plugging away, and you hope something will come through and something will happen. ”