A woman in Mexico wanted me to heal her. But I can't heal anybody. I just put my hand on her and said, 'Thank you for seeing the film.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Pain is temporary, film is forever.
After Survivor, I was driving across country and moving to San Francisco, going to get a job interning at an ad agency. And then they asked me to read for this movie.
I have healed myself through sharing my birth story as well as others' stories in my film 'No Woman, No Cry,' and in various writings and talks about maternal health.
I'm very thankful to directors and filmmakers who consider me in their films, and I hope I'm able to do justice to their films.
I live in a constant state of gratitude, thankfulness, and appreciation for the second chance I was given, so anytime in any film, when that is given to someone, I always appreciate it.
The movies were so healing for me because I had such an isolated, lonely childhood. Going to the movies and having the lights go down, you disappear. If you have esteem issues, suddenly you're in a void where nobody can see you. You are just by yourself in that darkness, and your loneliness is cured.
When I got my headshots done, there was this woman screaming at me to blow my lips out. She kept saying, 'You want to be like Scarlett Johansson, don't you?' In the shot, my eyes are popping out; I look terrified. I realised I'd rather not get a job than go through pain to be something I'm not.
I brought the film like a flower to the world.
A woman came up to me after one of the screenings with tears pouring down her face and sobbed, You've defined my entire life for me on the screen.
'Miracle at St. Anna.' I was challenged by Spike Lee. When he offered me the film, he looked me square in the eye and said, 'You start this film off and you end this film. I don't want a dry eye in the theatre. Can you pull that off?' He was dead serious.