Quotes from Tamara Tunie

I was very good in all the maths and sciences.

The key is allowing your partner to be who they are and not having expectations that really have nothing to do with the person you married.

I'm always happy and most at home on the stage. I love film and television, but I love live performance... your immediacy with the audience, it makes all the difference in the world.

When I first got to New York, all I did was musicals. After a few years I had to make a conscious choice to close the door on musicals, because I was getting pigeon-holed as a musical theater performer.

I missed singing. I missed performing in a nightclub.

I wake up late, say 10 or 11, because we've usually been out and about town until 2 or 3 A.M. listening to music at the jazz clubs or hitting the jazz clubs post-theater.

I'm a rabid Steelers fan: I'm originally from Pittsburgh. So if the Giants or Pittsburgh are playing, the rest of Sunday is all about food and football.

Living in New York, for me at least, just keeps it very real and keeps my feet firmly planted on the ground.

Chuck Cooper is a friend, and I adore him. He can do so many things.

Here's how I look at it: Life is full of challenges. Everybody has them. For some, it's health or family crises. I had a financial challenge.

Understand that the time in the audition is your time. Really own it and take control of it. And do what you prepared. Focus on really executing what it is that you intended to do.

I just think there are enough hours in the day. If you just focus and dedicate yourself and approach each task as it presents itself, you can accomplish a lot.

The stage and working in front of a camera are two completely different mediums. Each requires different techniques.

Show business is fickle, and though I have been blessed with a healthy career, who knows how long that will last?

I've been in this business a long time, and I'm very clear on what is real and what is fleeting.

I grew up in a funeral home, born and raised, and everyone was always like, 'Well, what was that like?' and I was like, 'It was normal', because it's all I knew.

I grew up in a funeral home. Both my parents were morticians.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, and regularly, my parents would take us to the Holiday House Supper Club to see acts like Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughn, Ben Vereen, Freda Payne, Stephanie Mills, and The Temptations, to name a few.

The first thing I do is brush my teeth - we like to start the morning with fresh breath - and put on my pajamas and meander down to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. No coffee. No caffeine.

There was a time, actually, when I hadn't been singing, and I'd lost a lot of my ability. My range had shrunk.

I've lived in New York for thirty years now, but I'm a proud Pittsburgher, and home is home. My family's still in Pittsburgh.

I believe in saying 'yes.' I love to work, and I always believe that the schedule can work out if everything is willing to allow it to work out.

All you have is yourself and what you have to present, and just focus on that. And if you can walk out of the audition and say to yourself, 'I hit all my beats,' 'I accomplished my emotional honesty,' or 'I remembered my words,' then that's winning.

I wanted to make a home that was similar to the kind of home that my mother made. To be able to create something like that in my adopted city, New York City, one of the toughest cities on the planet, is really special.