I love her. You love her. We all love her (and her show). So, in honor of tonight’s season finale of Tyler Perry’s, The Haves and Have Nots, I decided to get a little nosy with Tika. Enjoy!

EBONY: Ok. So we’re just gonna have fun. Nothing serious. Just random questions you can answer on the fly.

Tika Sumpter: OK! I’ll try. I’m a thinker though (laughs).

EBONY: Red lip or pink lip?

TS: Red lip. I wear pink all the time. But red lip just gives off, “Oh, hey girl…who me?”

EBONY: Favorite body part on yourself?

TS: Welll, I like my body so… I’ll just say everything below my neck!

EBONY: Girls night in or girls weekend getaway?

TS: Girls weekend getaway. I love to travel, boo.

EBONY: Champagne or wine?

TS: Wine.

EBONY: Plain white tee or button down?

TS: Plain white tee.

EBONY: Adventure date or dinner and a movie?

TS: Depends on what I’m feeling. I can be a dinner and a movie girl – classic.

EBONY: New York or LA?

TS: New York.

EBONY: Mascara or lashes?

TS: I love a good mascara.

EBONY: Fave beauty product?

TS: Oh lord, that’s hard. Foundation.

EBONY: What’s in your purse right now?

TS: You know what’s in my purse right now? A book.

EBONY: On a hot guy: dreads or a Caesar cut?

TS: Caesar.

EBONY: Ok, serious question – are you empowered by or over the brown/chocolate girl conversation?

TS: This is tricky. Because if I’m over it, then its like “ugh”. But I’m always empowered by women; in general and I think women are beautiful and I think if we continuously try to separate ourselves, it’s like what are we doing? I just think people need to empower themselves and be ok with everyone not telling them that they’re beautiful all the time. I get it because I’m a brown girl and I have nieces [who look like me]. But, let women be beautiful. If you’re brown, cool. I hate when dudes are like “You’re a beautiful brown girl”. Why do you have to specify?

EBONY: So tell me about your new projects. 

TS: The Haves and the Have Nots did well. And the James Brown biopic is coming out on Friday, and I’m in that–-so excited! I play Yvonne Fair, one of James Browns’ background singers/lovers… one of the many. I’m excited because Tate Taylor directed it who did The Help. I also have a film coming out called My Man is a Loser. It’s a fun, romantic movie. Michael Rappaport and Bryan Callen who was in Ride Along with me is in it this as well. It’s pretty much about a single man giving two married men advice about what they should do to make their marriages better. There’s some other things on the stove cooking that will be announced soon, too.

EBONY: Were you afraid to play the angry Black woman role on The Haves and Have Nots?

TS: She wasn’t [so much] angry. She’s super intense, super sexual, super disrespectful. So disrespectful, to everybody! It doesn’t matter who it is. It could be the Pope. “What? I’m not standing up!” That’s her. I was scared because I thought people were gonna hate me, like the real Tika.

EBONY: What’s up in the furture professionally?

TS: Oh, I’m definitely going to produce. I have a few projects that I’m working on right now. I’m super excited. I feel you have to diversify. You can’t just be an actor. And I don’t want to be. I don’t want to live and die by somebody’s ‘yes’ or ‘no’.