What book would you most like to see turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t already been adapted?

Easy: “Americanah,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie! This is a cheeky answer because I am producing the adaptation into a mini-series as we speak. It’s been a work in progress for over five years now and we are so close to rolling the cameras! “Americanah” is a dramatic romance and a coming-of-age story, a class narrative and a comedy of manners. I first read it back in 2013 and I was struck with how exactly I related to Adichie’s depiction of the contemporary African immigrant experience. She captures it, expresses it, analyzes it and celebrates it. It’s a story begging to be experienced visually.

Of all the characters you’ve played, which role felt to you the richest — the most novelistic?

I played Sonya in the play “Uncle Vanya,” by Anton Chekhov, while I was in drama school, and I think she is pretty novelistic. I’d say that Chekhov generally is novelistic. There is a lot of room in his plays for the interpretation and expression of human complexity.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?

“Fifty Shades of Grey” was my guilty pleasure while I was shooting “12 Years a Slave.” I needed something light and inconsequential to take me out of the harshness of the world of that film, and EL James did the trick! I haven’t read any of the sequels, though, and I haven’t watched the films either. I guess we can say that I am saving those for another hard role I may play in the future.

What writers are especially good on the world of acting and performance?

“The Actor and the Target,” by Declan Donnellan, is a book I turn to again and again. Quite heady but so many ideas to hold on to and examine.

Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?

Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” once inspired me to break up with a boyfriend. I was reading the play at the time and, like Nora, I realized that he was not at all the person I had believed him to be and that our relationship was based on mutual fantasies and misunderstandings. So, like Nora, I got away to understand myself better.

Do you prefer books that reach you emotionally, or intellectually?

Intellectually might be more important to me, because I prefer books that teach me something practical. I am, for example, the kind of person who reads the instruction manual cover to cover before I use a new appliance or gadget.