Laverne Cox Quotes

How will I become Meryl Streep if I can't even get in the door with Jennifer Lawrence for the same role? I think that it starts with casting directors and executives and studio heads opening up their minds, and really putting an effort into being trans inclusive in their projects, whether they're trans-specific or not.

When we get to a point when trans folks are included in the creative process, the narrative will be much more authentic. Trans actors playing trans roles is a key part of that. But some of the trans talent is not even making it into the audition room, let's be honest.

There are no trans roles, and if there are, they go to Jared Leto or Eddie Redmayne or Elle Fanning... Will there ever come a point where I could play a woman in a realistic, naturalistic drama and have there not be the word 'trans' in the script?

That's why so many people want to play Hamlet: because it's a completely demarked role, and the actor playing it has to be prepared, through the language, to allow the audience to see into who he is.

I am very close to a number of actresses who are trans and hungry for parts.

I knew 'Transparent' and saw a few episodes of 'Orange is the New Black,' so I knew about the trans actor in that cast. Of course, I saw 'Boys Don't Cry' back in the day. But the path that led me to this subject was different... it's just my curiosity as a human being more than my awareness of any political struggles.

Trans talent is not even making it into the audition room, and we're not even being afforded the opportunity to tell our own stories. I feel that is problematic.

I'm loving the fact that Hollywood is telling trans stories.

Food is one of my favourite things. Though I certainly know lots of people who happen to be happily married who don't have food play the role in it that it plays in my life. And I don't know how they do it, and frankly I feel so bad for them because I just love food and one of my favourite things is asking, "What do we want for dinner? What do we feel like eating?" That wonderful negotiation that goes on several times a week about what "we" feel like.

I always knew I wanted to be an actress, and I had the attitude that I would learn more under people like Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne or Mike Myers than from someone who had never starred in a movie. I just didn't think that someone who had never been in a movie could teach me how to act in one.

Any ensemble - they didn't call it "the all-male Expendables," for example. But it's Hollywood's fault that people say that, because there have been so few movies that have allowed women to have these leading roles, so that's Hollywood's fault.

There's a crowd of people harbored in each person There are so many roles that we play.

The movie people would have nothing to do with me until they heard me speak in a Broadway play, then they all wanted to sign me for the silent movies.

Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys but there just aren't that many tour-de-force roles out there for women.

Some people come to you because if you're in their movie, it'll help them raise money. And some people come to you because they think you're the person to play the part.

I think the world is ready for people of color to take on more heroic and leading roles, and not always be the sidekick, the nemesis or any sort of stereotype of what a person of color can play typically in a Hollywood picture.

If you look at any of the greats, from people like Paul Newman and Robert Redford to, you know, Brad Pitt - to get any of the kinds of roles like the ones that they've gotten, or just to be a part of any of the kinds of movies they've made, would be the end-all for me.

You look at people like Gena Rowlands, but she had [John] Cassavetes to write these amazing roles for her.

For the only time in my career, I came in and met Tony [Richardson] for the part - I did not read, I just met with him - and in the middle of the meeting, he told me that I had the part [in The Hotel New Hampshire]. There was never, "Well, thank you, and we'll have my people call your people." There was none of that kabuki that goes on now endlessly for even the smallest role.

People say, "How come you play bad guys so much?" And I say, "Well, have you seen many Asian good-guy roles?"

There aren't a lot of great parts out there that are interesting for people in my category.

People talk about generating my own work, but I don't really know how to go about that. There are certainly some roles in the theater I'd like to play but I don't know if I'll ever get to do it.

All I know is there's thousands of people in the Academy and a lot of them, the majority of them, haven't won Oscars.A lot of people are crying, I guess.

I play the same album over and over until the people in my house are ready to kill me.

There's more of yourself in a book than a play. that's why we know all about Dickens and not much about Shakespeare. Ben Jonson murdered people; Marlowe was a spy; Shakespeare just sat in the corner and took notes.