John Cho Quotes

I was always asked to play roles where I was the contrasting or multicultural character. Sometimes that worked for me - often it didn't.

I'm very happy to have the heritage that I do, but I'm not wanting to be 'the Latino actor.' I just want to be 'an actor.'

I don't understand labels. I don't need anybody to tell me I'm Latina or black or anything else. I've played characters that were written for Caucasian females, I just want to be given the same consideration as everybody else, and so far that has been happening.

I've stayed away from doing 'urban film' because I just don't relate to the characters. I'm not going to take a role because I happen to have the same skin color.

I'm black, yeah, but I'm just an actor, so everything I do doesn't have to be color-specific or specific to history. But I got to a point where a lot of people wanted to offer me period pieces, like that's the only thing I could do.

Since I am a turbaned Sardar, I can only play Sardar roles. Either that or producers should be willing to alter the script to accommodate my physical appearance. But I won't call this a restriction.

I've shied away from playing Asian characters. if you look back, I'm playing characters that have no relevance to my ethnicity.

No matter how cutting-edge Hollywood may seem, it is still delayed in how it views people: If producers do not perceive me as an Iranian girl, then I cannot play an Iranian girl. If you aren't perceived as a full black girl, then it makes it more difficult to play a black girl on TV.

Sean Connery wasn't the Scottish James Bond and Daniel Craig wasn't the blue-eyed James Bond. So if I played him, I don't want to be called the black James Bond.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.

The funny thing is I'm not even Latin. I was constantly getting Latin roles, and I was like, I even was nominated for an award, and I was like, 'Let them know at the NAACP, the first white woman. Let them know I'm totally grateful, but I'm not Latin. I can't do that. I play Latin.'

Not only do I not want to be stereotyped as this Asian girl who fights - gee, what a wonder - but also I have more to offer than that.

I'm 100 percent Irish by birth, grew up Italian, and yet I constantly get cast as playing Jewish.

Watching 'Girls,' it was really angering for me at first, because I really had spent decades hiding unlikable, unattractive Jewish girls in likable, attractive, non-Jewish actors and characters.

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.

There has been a big debate about it: can a black man play a Nordic character?

I look forward to the day when indigenous actors can play Hamlet and Ophelia and not just Othello and Desdemona.

Being Latino and being an actor has been a unique struggle and opportunity. When you don't fit into what may be a more stereotypical vision of somebody whose name is Pedro is, it can be a little bit harder to navigate.

I know a lot of brown actors who play terrorists because they're physically intimidating. For me, it was like, 'O.K., you'll be the nerd.' So I've played the nerd. I've played food-delivery guys. But I always tried to find something in the characters so that they weren't just defined by what they looked like.

The truth of the matter is, I am a black woman, and I am an actor. I don't try to get caught up in being a black actor; I'm just an actor who is a black woman. It's not about forgetting that you're black, but you don't need to be hammered over the head, either; it just is what it is.

Just because we finally have a Latino family on TV doesn't mean we're up there to lecture people about what it means to be Latino.

I grew up in musicals, and if you looked like me and sounded like me, you were the character; you were never at the center of the story.

I've had a fantastic career playing great parts. In many ways, the colour of my skin has been an asset because I've been asked to play certain roles as a result. I don't apologise for playing them anymore than Robert de Niro is sorry for playing American-Italians.

What if Macauley Culkin were black in 'Home Alone?' Most people would write it differently... but I would write it the same way.

In the world of animation, you can be anything you wanna be. If you're a fat woman, you can play a skinny princess. If you're short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you're a white man, you can play an Arabian prince. And if you're a black man, you can play a donkey or a zebra.