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My dad used to say to me, 'You look more like me than I do.'

When I was a kid, people people would always say, 'Oh you look like Chilli from TLC.' It wasn't until I did 'Akeelah and the Bee' that people started saying I looked like Angela Bassett, but before then it was Chilli.

Like, you can't tell a certain race, like, 'You're supposed to act this way, and you're not supposed to act this way because of what color you are,' like, that's just holding everybody back, you know what I'm saying?

People say to me, 'Do you know who you look like?' And I say, 'I'm really tired of looking like that guy.'

I would say things like 'I am the greatest! I'm pretty! If you talk jive, you'll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I'm pretty!' When white people heard me talking like this, some said, 'That black man talks too much. He's bragging.'

In my job, people tell you that all the time: 'This shoot was great. You look amazing.' But you never know what they say when you turn away.

I can't tell you the number of people that are like, 'Has anyone ever told you you look like a blonde Liv Tyler?' And at this point, I'm like, 'Yes... yes, I've been told that.' I mean, she's beautiful. It's not like I'm not totally flattered by it, but then again, I think I look like myself.

I've had so many people in my life put me down because of how I look. When I worked in restaurants, I had people say, 'I don't want her to serve my food,' because I looked dirty or something.