"My mama is African-American and from Wisconsin. My baba was born in Iran. My parents have stressed the idea of creating your own path, and creating your own identity is part of that. That's why embracing these two cultures is important to me. When you're biracial, you can feel like you're fully neither, not fully both, but I won't strip away my heritage for anyone's comfort."
"Never jeopardize who you are for a role. Now, I'm not saying you should never change for a role because the fun of being different characters is adapting different nuances and different parts of the character, but never jeopardize your moral compass or anything like that to have a role."
"I've gotten to live the past couple of years publicly and so authentically myself. It's exciting to see that I can be who I am and people will still gravitate towards that. I go into this world of public living, not hoping for fame or celebrity, but to make some sort of impact."