Laverne Cox has been on a powerful journey to happiness after overcoming many personal hardships in her formative years, which she details in her new autobiography, "Transcendent," which was released in June.
The talented actress has opened up about her very personal memoir, as well as her new film, Animal Farm, which was released on July 24, where she voices the character of Snowball, in a new exclusive interview with HELLO!
© WireImageLaverne's new role
Animal Farm is a film adaptation by Andy Serkis, of the popular 1945 novel of the same name by George Orwell.
The story portrays the political overthrowing of a corrupt government, through the allegory of using farm animals who overthrow their farmer to gain freedom.
Laverne signed onto the project with a bigger picture in mind and a strong message that she hopes the audience takes away with them after watching the movie.
© FilmMagicShe revealed: "I think it's about being critical of power and how power can corrupt absolutely, if we're not careful, and that our leaders should really have the interest of the people in mind, and not their own."
The entertainer continued: "And more than all of that, I hope it's an invitation for people to think critically about the world around them, and to become as educated as possible about how the world works, how politics works, how power works, so that they can have the information to rise up as individuals to hold our leaders accountable, and to bring power back to the people."
Laverne's memoir
Laverne vulnerably shared how challenging it was reflecting back on some of her darkest moments while writing her book.
She expressed: "Most of it was difficult, particularly everything childhood related was insanely hard. The suicide attempt at 11 was excruciating to write about. The orphanage was really one of the hardest things to write about. The sexual assault when I was like 13 was hard to write about."
The author acknowledged: "It was torturous. It was really torturous. I thought it was important to write about those things though, because they're the truth. A lot of people didn't know those things…so I grew up with a lot of shame and a lot of trauma."
© Getty ImagesLaverne transformed that pain into purpose and discovered that being transparent was the way towards authentic healing in her personal life.
She shared: "I'm not the only one who's grown up with a lot of shame and trauma, and there are ways to not have that define you, and not have that be the only part of your story."
Laverne expressed: "I am here at 54 years old, having done a lot of work on myself to build trauma resilience, shame resilience, to have a sense of worthiness, not because I have an Emmy or a SAG Award or a magazine cover, or I'm a New York Times bestselling author now. None of that makes me worthy."
The actress continued: "I'm worthy because I'm a child of God, because I am inherently beautiful and anointed, because I am all of the things that I had shame about as a kid – [those] are my superpowers and the things that I was bullied for and abused for, are magical, wonderful things."
© Getty ImagesLaverne hopes that through her anecdotal journey, readers will discover their own resilience and will come out the other side reinvigorated with love towards themselves.
She expressed: "And so that's why I took the great pains to write about all those things, because I'm not the only one who has gone through all those things and there is a way out. There's a way to love yourself. I think if you read my book, you'll get some ideas about how to do that."
As the popular saying goes, "love is a verb, not a noun," and Laverne couldn't agree more.
The actress concluded: "Self-love is about action. It's about how we treat ourselves, what we say to ourselves about ourselves, our self-talk, who we surround ourselves with, the people, places and things that we have around us."
