'Every day is lovely' for Lorraine Toussaint

The Village is set in an apartment in Brooklyn, which is where you grew up. Does that make the connection feel even stronger?

It does and it doesn't because I've been gone from urban living for many, many years, and at core I'm not an urban creature, I'm at core a rural creature. I live in Midtown, but it's hard for me — it's tough for me to be in a city as much as I am now. I lived on six acres in the mountains with my own well in Malibu. If I had my druthers, that's where I'd be, on a mountain with my own well.

Is it a conscious decision to choose projects that emphasize diversity?

It is quite conscious. I'm interested in a certain kind of work, and I do take responsibility for the work that I put out because I do have a sense of the power of these mediums in people's lives. I am always on some level aware of, “What am I saying with this piece of work? What am I putting out there? Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?”

Your thriving career has been called a “Lorrainaissance.” How do you feel about that?

I feel like I'm coming into my own again, that this coming home to myself again is even deeper and fuller and has so many more variations of color based on the life that I've been quite fully living. I say to young actors when they ask me for advice, “Live. Live fully. Don't skip any beats, don't push anything away, go at it straight down the barrel.”

I feel as committed to my work now as when I started. I feel as excited as I did when I started. It feels as spontaneous and as scary and as exciting as when I first started. When I start a new role I'm like a kid again.

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How do you do that — stay fully present?

Wake up, number one. Most people are asleep or sleepwalking or dreaming they're awake. It's hard to wake up, and it's even harder still to stay awake because so much in this life is designed to put you to sleep, to keep you unaware and sedated in your own life, in your own mind, in your own body. Recognize what those traps are and don't go down those roads. Stay awake. And then show up in full presence.

There may be a lot of things in my life, but my god, it's not boring.

How do you feel about turning 60 next year?

I've gotta tell you, this birthday was the first birthday that made me go, “Hey, wait a minute! Hold on! You mean the next one's going to have a six attached to it? Hmmm….” In this culture of youth and certainly in this business of mine that reveres youth, it's nice to be in the middle of a Lorrainaissance, because I'm not a part of that thinking and still have the privilege to be contributing work that I believe has resonance and relevance. That's nice.

You have a blog called Everyday Lovely. What's that about?

At core I think every day is lovely, that every day I'm alive is lovely and deserves to be honored in a lovely way. That loveliness can be marked in everyday kind of ways. It doesn't take very much to mark the loveliness of a day, of a moment. You know, gathering some wild flowers or making your bed in a lovely way or putting a flower in your child's lunchbox. It just takes that extra step. When you commit to living lovely, lovely will find you wherever you are.