Merle Dandridge

I was in the ministry for some time. All my family is immersed in a black church in Memphis.

You can have a great, deep connection with somebody and still disagree with their actions.

Monty Python has such a huge following... myself included.

I was born in Japan, and then we went to Korea, and I was raised in Nebraska.

I've been in leadership roles on Broadway, and it's one thing to lead a Broadway company - you're with those people for a year straight, and you're doing that same show, eight shows a week. It's quite another when you carry on the story... You go beyond that, and you ride the wave of a character.

By always looking out and always moving myself forward and being disciplined and being open to new experiences, I think that's how I was able to diversify because if it felt right to me creatively, I went for it. It didn't matter if I knew how to do that, I just did it because my creative heart felt pulled to it. That seems to have worked out.

I call my culture 'kimchi and collards.'

'Greenleaf' has such great affection for the church.

In the theater, you have to speak so people in the last row of the peanut gallery can hear you. With television, the camera does that work for you.

'Greenleaf' never mocks religion. It reminds us that people in churches are human, and no one is perfect.

I think my family sees me playing a pastor on TV and thinks that's a way of saying I have the calling, too.

God has placed within each of us an immeasurable, unique gift. It is our duty to live that out to the full and to encourage one another with gusto.

If I've learned one thing from my mother, my teachers, my greatest female inspirations, it's that Boundaries Are Optional.

I enjoy hearing from different people who have turned their personal struggles into something that can inspire others and encourage people to push past hard times.

I have a Manhattan club chair in dark espresso leather that I always read in. It's a place where I can contemplate other people's thoughts and stir my imagination.

Feng shui is really important to me.

Chicago actors and Chicago theater is some of the most authentic stuff that you will ever encounter, and I'm so proud to have come up from that. It's where I cut my teeth and where I found my passion for this work.

I like to stretch myself and push the envelope, so anything that's new or different or not of my daily routine, I am so for.

I worked really hard in college, and I came out a completely different person and performer than when I went in. I did the work, and I found a craft.

Authenticity, living your truth, kindness - these are necessary virtues.

As women, we have super powers. We are sisters. We are healers. We are mothers. We are goddess warriors.