“I’ve never given my phone number to someone on the street, but when someone is a gentleman, I appreciate the compliments.”
― Aja Naomi King
“If I had a free afternoon, I would play music, sit in my backyard, and drink coffee.”
― Aja Naomi King
“To relax, I love sitting back and turning my brain off and watching TV.”
― Aja Naomi King
“There are people who do what they believe is right, but as they say, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’”
― Aja Naomi King
“Not everyone’s high standards have to be the same thing.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I’m at a place where I want to have fun. I want to be challenged. I want to love the people I work with and continue to appreciate being in the position to work and play and explore.”
― Aja Naomi King
“My ideal date would involve a park or rowing in those little boats on a lake.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Strength doesn’t mean an absence of pain.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Create something for yourself that you feel proud of, that you are in control of, that gives you a better understanding of the type of artist you want to be.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Your artistry is a muscle that needs to be exercised, so if all you are doing is auditioning, you’ll never get the satisfaction of fulfilling the need to play the part.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I’ve been trying to eat healthier, but sometimes it doesn’t work out when you’re sitting in front of the TV drinking wine, and you realize you really need ice cream to go along with it.”
― Aja Naomi King
“We all have our family issues from time to time.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I love Haagen Daaz Caramel Cone, or the Ben and Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake. Pairs well with anything.”
― Aja Naomi King
“By high school, I was telling everyone, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up,’ because my dad was always saying to me, ‘Pick a career path where you’re always going to be necessary.’ But by junior year, I was president of choir, I was the lead in the school play, and I just loved being onstage performing.”
― Aja Naomi King
“A man should be well groomed. If you’re going to have facial hair, it should be a choice, not an accident.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I think it’s well-known that I love all things ABC and Shonda Rhimes – I’m a huge ‘Scandal’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ fan.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Not to say there’s not good TV out there, but I think TV is better when it accurately reflects the world as it is.”
― Aja Naomi King
“TV is such a great medium in what it can do in terms of enlightening an audience. We can really inspire and teach people about other people. That’s a powerful tool, and that’s something that the arts has always been capable of doing.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Back when people couldn’t read, other people would take newspapers and turn them into theater so that people would know what was going on in the world. That is a powerful thing.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I really care about people, and I would need someone to also genuinely value other human beings and want to be connected with people in the world and to know about other cultures. That might not be a high standard for someone else, but for me, it’s really important to try and stick to that.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I can be just a touch controlling!”
― Aja Naomi King
“Words can’t describe how one would feel in that moment after doing a test for something you really want but in your heart you don’t think you have a chance of getting.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I love the powerful woman who’s complicated. There’s no push to be one thing or another thing. It’s all human. That’s what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I’ve been performing since I was a child; my mother would have to pull me aside and tell me that I wasn’t onstage. I was a cheerleader, president of choir, and in the school play.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Diversity is such an interesting word. I feel like when people hear the word ‘diversity,’ they think that it means only people of color, when in reality, diversity is all-inclusive; it means everyone.”
― Aja Naomi King
“A man can get my attention by smiling at me and then coming over and talking to me. The best way to get a girl’s attention is to start a conversation.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I have a girl crush on Olivia Munn so much, especially on ‘Newsroom.’ And Cara Delevingne, but who doesn’t love her face? Viola Davis is my acting crush.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I thought I was going to be on Broadway. I thought, ‘I’m going to do theater.’”
― Aja Naomi King
“When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you’re waiting and waiting and waiting, once you’re actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Sometimes as human beings, we’re so contradictory – we may say something or do something and completely contradict ourselves. That’s what I’m learning to embrace in television – not knowing what’s going to happen.”
― Aja Naomi King
“As artists, we thrive when we can express our comfort and our discomfort. If a certain scene is really challenging for us, if we’re in an environment where we feel safe, we’re able to do our work.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I want to write. I want to direct. I want to produce – I want to inhabit what I think it means to fully be an artist.”
― Aja Naomi King
“The problem of sexism is getting better, but I don’t know if it’s getting better fast enough. We see more roles for women that don’t entirely revolve around the way in which they function in a man’s life, but typically those women are almost always white, and even then, there are only a few of them.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Studying acting has been personally enriching because it has taught me to take the time to imagine what someone else’s life experience might be like. To look deeply at how our pasts and the circumstances of our early childhoods mold us as people.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Sometimes people just need to feel heard, and being an actor has taught me to really listen.”
― Aja Naomi King
“The advice that I was always given when asking for advice about acting was that if I could imagine myself doing anything else, anything else at all, then go do that.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I come from a family of storytellers. Growing up, my father would make up these stories about how he and my mother met and fell in love, and my mother would tell me these elaborately visual stories of growing up as a kid in New York, and I was always so enrapt.”
― Aja Naomi King
“My hair routine is to let someone else do it.”
― Aja Naomi King
“It gets a little crazy at Disneyland. It’s a little bit more hardcore then people think.”
― Aja Naomi King
“It was a given at UCSB that if there was a role that called for a person of color, it was going to be handed to me. There were certain times when maybe I didn’t try as hard. Going to Yale was a way more diverse experience.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Love is a complicated emotion because you can learn something or hear something that goes against what you have come to know personally. It can be very challenging to what you believe.”
― Aja Naomi King
“When I was younger, it was harder for me to find a black eyeliner that would actually show up on my skin. Being a dark-skinned woman, when you find something that actually shows up on your face, you love it even more.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I’m obsessed with eyeliner – the darker and kohl-ier, the better.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I use Pureology Shampoo and Conditioner, and after shampooing, I’ll put the conditioner on, go watch a movie, and wash it out later. When you have black girl hair, once we wash, we’ve gotta do the whole press and get in the edges and everything. That’s a lot of heat to go back to straight on a daily basis.”
― Aja Naomi King
“To meet someone who wants to fight to just tell the truth about what’s happening in government… this is a real life superhero right here.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I always think – when I get mad, and people say, ‘Don’t be the angry black woman’ – it’s like, well, why not? There’s so much to be angry about.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I saw ‘Birth’ at the Sundance Film Festival with a thousand other strangers, and I couldn’t believe that was me in the film. I didn’t recognize myself.”
― Aja Naomi King
“In this day and age, when there are so many people creating work online and writing their own shows, I wouldn’t tell another actor, ‘If you can do anything else go do that.’ I would tell them to figure out the story they want to tell, to figure out what artists inspire you and why, and then figure out a way you can create that for yourself.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I have a lovely light blue Kate Spade wallet. It has pockets for many credit cards, business cards, health insurance cards, and a Burke Williams card for when I want to go to the spa!”
― Aja Naomi King
“I do everything on my phone!”
― Aja Naomi King
“My favorite spot to hang out is my home.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I love thigh highs, heels, shorts, or a skirt.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I was getting in my own way. I would quit jobs and step out on hope and faith, and pray to God that I would book something that would allow me to just continue to act.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I really appreciate that: to walk into an environment where everyone is serious and dedicated to creating the best performance possible and challenging themselves to figure out the most interesting way to approach the work.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Being on a show with a female lead is amazing for me. I love that.”
― Aja Naomi King
“If all we remember are good things, then happiness is our baseline, and there’s no longer happiness. We need other feelings in order to appreciate others.”
― Aja Naomi King
“If you ask two people to remember a specific event, the stories are going to vary wildly because we always make ourselves out to be the hero.”
― Aja Naomi King
“It’s such a big deal, the notion that these enslaved Africans had marriages and children… because therein lies our humanity, our capacity for love.”
― Aja Naomi King
“When I was younger, my mother tried to get me an agent because I was always singing and dancing, but whenever she took me to an audition, I would just shut down.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I majored in theater, so I’d love to get back on a stage.”
― Aja Naomi King
“I’m a little bit of a control freak, so it’s been nice to learn to let go and just trust others.”
― Aja Naomi King
“You don’t know what’s gonna happen, so you can’t really plan: you can only go with it.”
― Aja Naomi King
“Television has embraced so much in terms of storytelling and in terms of a wide array of characters conveying stories from different points of view.”
― Aja Naomi King
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