NIA LONG COVERS MONARCH MAGAZINE.

After a year long hiatus, Monarch magazine is back in business. The lovely Nia Long, who'll tumble over the hill later on this year, all while looking not even a day over 30, graces their summer 2010 issue and dishes details on what's been going on lately in her life and her career. Check the excerpts below.

NIA ON WHY WE HAVEN'T SEEN HER ONSCREEN IN OVER TWO YEARS: "Work has been slow for me. I think it's been slow for everybody. But certainly it's been slow for me, but there's two reasons for that. One, is because I have no desire to repeat performances and to do the same things over and over again. I've been very careful and selective, and I also wanted to take this year to do some very personal growth. So I wanted to take time out for myself and really work on some personal things. Every now and then you have to take a step back and look at what you've accomplished, and when things slow down that's when you really have to do the work. When you see actors and artists on the red carpet, you're seeing the manifestation of something they worked really hard for. So if you don't have the downtime to create and focus in on your next creative venture, you really become depleted.

I've been in this business for over twenty years. I have been consistently working since I was about seventeen-years-old, this year I turn 40! I feel so good, I feel accomplished. I feel whole. I feel like a woman, I don't feel like a girl anymore. I feel really proud of what I've done, but I also feel very clear about what the next five years of my life are going to be like. And I had to take this years to really get my mind around what I wanted and how to execute the plan. You can't do anything without a plan. And so that's what I'm kinda doing right now."

NIA ON TEACHING HER SON THE IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIBILITY & GIVING BACK: "I just left Fiji where I did a bunch of community service on the island. We went and mentored children, and we had a chance to really see and understand the village life and what these young children go through. We try to give them something to hold on to because they live under very poor circumstances. Some of them have to swim across a river just to get to school. So I took my son and it was just a life changing experience for him because he didn't really understand what poor meant until he got there. So I try to teach him that giving back is the biggest thing you can do in life because there is always somebody in need of something...I also know my son is watching my every move and I want him to be a good man. I want him to be an amazing professional, whatever he chooses to do. And I want him to be an amazing husband and father."

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MORE EXCERPTS & PICS AFTER THE JUMP!

NIA ON HER WHY HER GRANDMOTHER IS HER GREATEST INSPIRATION: "She came to this country from a very small island called Granada. She spent years in Trinidad, and she was just a hard worker. And now she suffers from Alzheimers's disease and it's sad because I'm looking at this woman who would take the world on her shoulders and make things happen. She could talk to me about everything from sex to having a conversation with the president. So, physically she's still with me, I thank God, but mentally she's slowly leaving me and it breaks my heart because she's the one that I could speak to about any and everything. I try to just remember those conversations, and we still have them til this day, but they're different. So she's really my inspiration, whenever I feel insecure or unsure of what to do next, she's the person who puts things into perspective."