Quotes from Danai Gurira

I don't care about the quality of the film as a whole, but I loved 'Salt.' I loved it!

I've always been extremely physically active.

I hate horror movies! I avoid them like the plague. I don't like getting scared.

Back in the day, I used to read 'Archie,' but I haven't been a comic book aficionado.

I got an M.F.A. in acting from NYU, and part of our training is to learn how to use swords in combat situations in a performance and Shakespeare plays where you have to fight.

It's something I've constantly found shocking - all this astounding talent amongst black women that never gets to be seen or heard.

I want to see women of African descent shine.

I want women and girls of African descent and of color to be able to not have to keep searching for stories about themselves.

Actors may not realize the extent of their own power. Acting is creation. It's them bringing their own stuff, letting it marinate in their soul, in their creative engine.

I call myself Zimerican. I was born in the Midwest to Zimbabwean parents. My father was a professor at Grinnell College in Iowa.

I'm a storyteller. I'm always willing to serve the story, a story I believe in, in whatever way is necessary. If I need to write the story I believe in, I will write it. If I've been offered to act in a story that I truly believe in, I will happily do that, but I'm a storyteller. That's something I'm so thankful for.

Zimbabweans are so smart and witty and able to weave together tons of situations and experiences into terminologies that are just utterly original.

I'm not only a person of color, I'm also a woman. And I'm not only a woman, I'm also a woman from the Third World. All those elements put together means I have a lot to do.

You look at women like Lena Dunham, you look at how women are kind of crafting their own space on the screen. I want to add to that.

I always used to say hybrids would rule the world - people who have an understanding of many cultures and can relate to them with ease. And then along came Obama.

I like to focus on stories that need to be told and are not told enough. When I get bit by that bug, and the story is saying, 'You must tell me,' I then go through a process which is often painful and arduous, and long - and joyful! - of submitting to the story until I prove a worthy enough vessel to get it out.

I went to grad school because I wanted to learn the rules so I would know how to break them. Breaking the rules is saying, 'I'm breaking in, OK? I'm breaking in your very comfortable little house over here, and I'm going to take a room.'

I work with writers whom I believe to be true storytellers. And because I'm a writer, I pay very keen attention to their vision. I find that so fueling creatively because, in telling those stories, you use everything you've got. You come away with battle scars. It's gratifying and invigorating.

I'm all about getting the training. Don't roll out of bed and say, 'I can do this.'

I love writing for other actors, women of African descent and people who are generally underrepresented.

You have to remember that you are part of a craft, and you are constantly building your craft. Ultimately, we are artists, so it comes from us. And I think the tricky thing about being an actor is that we're looking for someone else to give us something... Thinking like an artist and thinking like an out-of-work actor are two different things.

I went to Macalester in Minnesota to study social psychology, the study of why people do what they do. I was really looking at race, population, gender, and how we psychologically function in a way that affects our societal outcomes around those issues.

I never consider myself a minority. I see people who look like me in Barbados, in Trinidad, in Haiti, in London, and in Brooklyn. So I don't know what the heck anyone means when they call me a 'minority.' There's something about that word to me. It just minimalizes people.

I was in a very multi-racial, multi-cultural schooling system. I had a really delightful childhood. I was a jock. I became a very competitive swimmer in Zimbabwe. I was a swimmer, a tennis player, a hockey player. Then, when I was 13, I joined a Children's Performing Arts workshop in Zimbabwe.