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My mom is super fabulous, and I remember her telling me at 13, 'You can start wearing makeup now.' And the funny thing is, I didn't take her up on it!
Samira Wiley -
We can climb mountains with self-love.
Samira Wiley
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Before Juilliard, I was a schoolteacher for a little bit. I taught in a charter school. I was a substitute teacher for kids ages 3 to 6.
Samira Wiley -
I really want to play a superhero. I want to take the role-model thing up a notch. I've always been a fan of movies and TV, and to be able to play the ultimate TV superhero would be awesome.
Samira Wiley -
My mother, actually, is a therapist.
Samira Wiley -
There was this girl who went to my school, and she did a Nikki Giovanni poem, 'Ego Tripping,' and it was just different from everyone else's. It wasn't flat recitation. It had an energy and a life to it. And it made me sit up in my seat, and my eyes got wide, and I really felt inside myself, 'She's making me feel things. I want to do that.'
Samira Wiley -
It's one thing to live my own life and know that I'm O.K. But there's another thing I want to take on, and that is letting people know that they're O.K., too.
Samira Wiley -
The way it works at Julliard is that you just perform with people who are in your own class.
Samira Wiley
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I'm not a writer; I'm an actor. My job is to take whatever character I'm given and - especially because I have the responsibility of being a black actress, and I know young black girls are looking up, and everyone's looking to what's on television - to just try to give whatever character I'm playing as three-dimensional a portrayal as I can.
Samira Wiley -
The actors that I admire are able to step into so many different roles.
Samira Wiley -
I'm very unpopular for my dislike of this food, but I've never liked avocado. Everyone gives me so much flack for it because they tell me how healthy it is for me, how delicious it is. I don't like it, but it's not for lack of trying. I tried to like it, and it's just not my thing.
Samira Wiley -
Poussey is a really huge part of 'Orange,' and I'm sure her name will always echo through the halls of Litchfield, dead or alive.
Samira Wiley -
I'm actual thankful for the amount of responsibility that has been handed to me. I feel very honored.
Samira Wiley -
I'm definitely caught up in the Kool-Aid of true-crime stories.
Samira Wiley
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I love horror movies.
Samira Wiley -
I think of the prisoners on 'Orange Is the New Black,' a lot of times, as uplifting.
Samira Wiley -
I come from a theater background, and if you're doing a play, your audience is right there, and you're able to have that one-on-one experience. Doing more TV now, when fans come up to me on the street and talk to me on social media, that's a way to bridge that gap.
Samira Wiley -
There's a play that Chekhov wrote called 'Uncle Vanya,' and I when I was in school, I played Sonya, and sometimes people ask me if there was ever a role I could play again, that's definitely the role I would play again: Sonya in 'Uncle Vanya.'
Samira Wiley -
I eat a lot. I probably eat more than anybody that I know. I'll go on set and get a plate of bacon, a bagel, an omelet, boiled eggs, fresh fruit, oatmeal, fresh juice, potatoes, basically anything that's there. I don't mean that I alternate between these things. I'll eat all of this for breakfast.
Samira Wiley -
I was obsessed with Lil' Bow Wow growing up, and you couldn't see the white of my walls because they were plastered with his photos. This is even more embarrassing: I had a notebook full of facts about Bow Wow and different pictures. I basically made a biography notebook about him and his life when he was, like, 13.
Samira Wiley
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It's interesting to have two totally unlikable characters as the love interests on a show.
Samira Wiley -
I've seen my parents dragged through the mud. But I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.
Samira Wiley -
When you're in prison, the progress of the outside world doesn't necessarily translate inside prison walls. You don't have any rights; it just doesn't progress along the same timeline.
Samira Wiley -
I never want to pigeonhole myself or get typecast. I'm looking forward to my career and showing all of my range as an actress, and I'm looking at other mediums, too. I'm a theater actress first. And I cannot wait to return to the stage.
Samira Wiley