Cicely Tyson

Born: December 18, 1924 in New York City, New York, USA

[of ‘trances’ she seems to occupy to prepare for roles] I’m looking inside myself. Inside of me is where this character is coming from, and I was feeling a sense of who this woman can be… I am the character [on set] until I go home.

How do you project a character if you don’t have a sense of where she is from? I’ve always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces. Being there [in Texas] I understood very clearly why my character [Carrie Watts in “The Trip to Bountiful”] longed to return because I was myself mesmerized by the beauty of the place and the tender enfolding of the gulf wind.