Nicole Beharie Quotes

I understand that, being born with a certain face, people want to see me in certain roles. But one needs to break that image by doing different kinds of films.

I used to say in interviews that I don't necessarily want to be the first black woman or first model to do certain things; I just want to see it done.

We don't want to be our own niche. We're filmmakers like everybody. How many years in a row are we going to talk about the fact that we make films and we are women? Enough already.

In America, I am brown; I'm 'of colour', so I would be offered Latin roles, and I've fought against that. I don't want to be put in a category, to be just offered the same sort of thing. For me, it's all about different roles, telling the stories of the great writers.

It's not enough even to have one black Barbie... because black women are not a monolith.

I want to put something on the screen that audiences have never seen black actors do before, roles that will widen views of who African-Americans are.

Film was something I didn't really think about when I was young, because if you looked like me, you weren't a film star.

I've played roles that aren't expected of an Asian.

I am proud to be able to exhibit my work and inspire young people. Especially young black women so they know that they are beautiful, that they don't have to hold onto any negative stereotypes.

The parts that I get to play are not based around the European beauty standards: They're more about character, and I love that.

In sci-fi, the Black guys always die. So, it's extremely important to bring African-American characters to the genre and not have them killed.

No matter what happens, we couldn't let people say Asian-American actors can't act.

When I started, it was all meter maids or the sassy nurse, or the sassy receptionist in the hospital. And I felt like: Are those the only jobs that large, black women have?

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 not a conventional leading man at all and have no wish to be.

I want to show another side of Middle Easterners. My hope is that I would be able to play a variety of parts, and not always be the guy with the accent.

I thought, 'Oh, this is great,' because maybe someone who does look like me will watch 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' and realize that they can be an actor if they want to be, or they can be a superhero. They can have a hero that looks like them as well.

My only goal as a comedian was to stomp the life out of the model-minority myth.

I think my roles have been wonderfully varied. Not one has been racially stereotypical, and I have purposely chosen them like that.

I really am happy that I met my agency and my management company, because they see me as a person and not just a Latin woman.

I think Hollywood is so driven by money, the people who are making the decisions are not necessarily reflective of the melting pot, so what stories are you going to want to tell? You're going to want to tell stories about yourself.

I make films about black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

I don't want to play everyone's best friend. I don't want to play the role of a girl struggling in the ghetto. It's not that that story isn't important, but I saw patterns, and was like, 'I don't relate to these people.'

Women just make interesting characters, especially when you're working against cliches.

If I had seen a black woman play Juliet as a little girl, my idea of my place in the world would have been totally different.