Quotes from Jodie Turner-Smith

I think about what I grew up seeing, what I didn't see growing up, and what it felt like when I did see someone who I thought that I could relate to, just living their life on screen.

The first job I booked was on 'True Blood.' I played a blood siren.

When I first started in modeling, I went back to England, and it was really hard, because I would go around to the agencies and they would be like, 'We already have one mixed-race black girl.'

I've always been 'other' in all the spaces that I've been in. Even when I first moved to America, just the idea that I was a dark-skinned black girl from England with an accent. It's one thing to be a black girl, but it's another to be a dark black girl. I was chastised for that. I was chastised for the way I spoke.

In America, interracial dating or marriage is not something that is as accepted. Certain people feel strongly against it, in both communities. I felt it from the black community. It is so complicated. I don't want to give it too much energy.

What's unique about America is that the country itself was built upon oppression, it's in the very foundation.