Quotes from Jodie Turner-Smith

I am deeply moved by sculptures of powerful women.

I went to business school so what they teach you in business school was that success is about positioning yourself to get lucky. It's not just about how hard you work. It is also about a little bit of luck. To position yourself to catch the luck when it comes.

My family is Jamaican. We were just the slaves that were dropped off over there. And at the end of the day when you live and exist as a Black person in America, at least to white society, to a certain extent, no one is asking where you're from and where you were born.

I'm learning there are certain things I have to really keep for myself.

The racial dynamics over here are fraught. White supremacy is overt. It's the reason I don't want to raise my kids here.

There was this wave of people who were upset that I was possibly married to a white man.

No offense to anybody from Pittsburgh, but Pittsburgh wasn't for me.

I don't really believe in coincidence.

I read the 'Nightflyers' novella and knowing that it was something that had been written by George R.R. Martin, knowing how those stories kind of go, I was really curious to see what happened to my character in the source material.

I think of L.A. as my home now, in large part because I became the entity that I am in L.A. I always say to people that my coming-of-age happened in L.A., the unraveling of the person I was pretending to be for a long time, and then finding of the person I feel like I now am.

I watched the Sandra Bland documentary and her tape itself over and over and over and over again, and just the reality of that, the fear in that.

What I love about my parents and Jamaican families is that exuberance we have, which I think is where I get my joy from, my energy and my attitude.

I didn't come to L.A. thinking, okay, I'm going to be an actor, so my progression was just kind of organic, starting in print modeling, which I was far less successful in, then acting in television commercials.

I understand we love to talk about black girl magic, but sometimes that is a term that allows people to put us in this character like we're not real people that feel real things.

It's a very complicated relationship that I have with America. I love it so much. And I also see the places where it's flawed.

While I might not have a specific experience that is fully American, there is still a knowledge, something that I logically understand as a black woman and a black woman who is existing in America and a black woman who is in the diaspora that are just known quantities that I think anyone can relate to who is black.

England has gone off the rails.

I think there's always been a little performer in me. But having a family that are Jamaican immigrants, having this idea that, 'Oh, that's what you're going to do for a living?' seems kind of out of reach and not a reality. It's like, 'get a real job.'

That callousness that comes from feeling like you have to survive on your own - I really empathized with that.

So I was really excited when I came to America about meeting black people. But it was a huge culture shock, because I was rejected by the black community. They were like, 'You talk like a white girl.' People would call me an Oreo. All I wanted was acceptance.

We definitely experience racism in England and different levels of oppression as well. Anywhere affected by colonialism there's certain kinds of race relations and class relations going on.

People are making a lot more noise about representation and diversity. But I think modeling is one of the professions where people can be kind of racist.

The fact that I'm being cast in a show to play a female lead and I'm the dark-skinned Black woman with short hair, it's so incredible.

Even with my family, I feel sort of 'other.' I'm the only one of my siblings who wasn't born in Jamaica. For a long time, I didn't feel very connected to Jamaican culture, but because I was raised so heavily with that cultural influence, I realized that my inner monologue is a Jamaican woman.