Eva Mendes Quotes

If I'd been asked to play an Asian man [in Doctor Strange] I would've shown them Benedict Wong.

It's funny, because I've never thought of myself as a Hispanic actor, like in 'American Gangster,' I'm playing an Italian. I've always been fortunate enough to have been allowed to play all these diverse roles.

The more visibility, the more opportunities for Asian-American actors to play great roles. It goes to the studios opening up roles they might not have considered Asian actors for. The talent is there. I don't think there needs to be one superstar, but having more roles open up, that's the way changes happen.

There has got to be a way for me to have a role on TV or in film that is just as normal as any other white actor. That's what I'm trying to get at.

Because of my age, the roles that I'm in doesn't have as much depth as I would like, but that will change. Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, they play heavy, meaty roles, which are the sort that I want to play...because of what I look like, I play with my looks, which is cool, but I've done it so many times. But one day I would love to play against my looks.

It's tough to get any movie made, but unless it's a movie about race or culture or ethnicity, it's becoming less and less important who's playing what. You see that on the big screen and the small screen, and I think that's great. That's exciting.

My hope is to see people of color in roles that do not emphasize race. Often times when movies are centered around people of color, they are movies where the storyline is based on some racial component. I want to see movies where people of color play more interesting, nuanced characters.

I believe it's important to have equal opportunities as a black actor. My way of fighting for it is through my art, by not accepting that there are roles that aren't for me.

There's room for Spike Lee's movies; there's room for Tyler Perry's movies. There's room for classics with an all black cast. There's room for all of it as long as we don't try to make any one piece define us as a race.

It's odd to say we had our first African American president before our first African-American-owned movie studio, but we're making progress.

On one hand, I think it's very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it's not talked about, then we won't progress. What I have a problem with is when it becomes another form of tokenization, of shrinking me into a symbol instead of a multilayered, female Asian artist.

I would love to experiment with roles. But when people say that we are not doing anything different, it is because directors do not approach us with diverse roles.

I really want to do roles that have some substance, and I hope writers give us that importance. I can't alone stand up and demand roles like that. It's a collective thing. Writers have to believe in heroines and understand that there's more to a woman than just her curves. It's not that they can't do it. They just choose not to.

I've never really had a chance to play a bad guy, and that's something I've always really, really wanted to do. I wanted to experience that really dark side of a person.

You don't want the white men to be written in a three-dimensional way but the black men, not. I mean, it's just about [how] scripts should always reflect real human beings. So that's what I look for.

When you look at "American Crime" and you have the character Terri LaCroix is a pharmaceutical executive - why does that character always have to be white?

One picture and one win cannot right a million wrongs. It's a step in the right direction.We have to get to a point where a movie like "Moonlight" winning [Oscar] or Barry Jenkins being nominated and winning, you know, for a screenplay or being nominated for best director - that it's just commonplace. They shouldn't be a novelty.

One of the things I'm concerned about is that I really want to make sure the races of all the characters are kept. I don't like it when black characters become white in movies, or things like that.

Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people - do you think it would be successful? Would people watch it? But no one questions the fact that everyone's white. That's what we have to change.

I would love to do some characters that have greater vulnerability. I don't know why. I know I can play these roles, but they're certainly not the only roles I can play.

I'm very fortunate that I get asked to do very different kinds of roles and I realize how much I enjoy that. I enjoy the challenge of transformation. There are actors who play one character, or a certain kind of character, the whole of their lives. I really relish the opportunity to have the challenge to totally transform.

When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.

I've played a different type of character in a different type of thing, for the most part. It's not like you can't mine tons of fascinating stuff from any character that you play, and I've always been fascinated with women and relationships, but this has been a completely different experience, for sure.

Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?

The point of acting is to hide yourself and get lost in character. To play the same character in eighteen movies would be defeating the purpose I believe so I try to keep a little bit of diversity.