Casting Discrimination Quotes

As an actor, I have casting issues. I'm a minority. I don't have trouble making a living, but as far as being on the food chain of the pecking order of actors, I'm not at the top of it. With the jobs that I do, there are always control issues with directors and producers.

I entered the acting world at a time when there was a higher demand for Middle Eastern actors in the post-9/11 world, and yeah, the roles weren't great.

Normally, you cast a pilot, and you have to make compromises about being political about who you cast.

I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?

With Asian-Americans actors, specifically, there's been fewer opportunities for them in TV and film and fewer that have the ability to actually make a career out of it. It becomes a bit of a chicken and egg situation, where they're like, 'Oh, but they're not famous names,' but they haven't had a chance to be in anything yet, either.

One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.

Depictions of race have changed so much since, like, the '50s, where white people just played every race. But the pendulum swings both ways: I'm Filipino-American. If I had to wait for a Filipino role to come out to get work, I couldn't eat. There are barely any roles out there.

It become totally untenable to me that after acting for 25 years - I've played Juliet, Cleopatra and Anne Frank - there I was, sitting in Hollywood, just waiting for somebody to want me.

When I started, there were no Indians on television or films, except for Sir Ben Kingsley. I was an actor in high school, college, and I played leads. And when I graduated, I knew that I couldn't go to Hollywood and audition for shows or films. I could try, but where was the evidence that it was going to happen?

After Halle Berry does her films and Queen Latifah does her films, it's left to all the black, Latino and Asian actresses to fight over a couple of roles. I opted for some TV. There's just not a ton of work in film.

It'd be nice if Asian actors could be perceived as profitable, which is the bottom line. We're perceived as not mattering much fiscally.

I know the only reason that I haven't gotten many good parts is because I am Latin - and they tell it to my face a lot of times.

I'm not getting into rooms for cis roles. I started my career auditioning for those roles, and then I went to play trans roles. And now, I feel boxed in.

It's very hard, you know, for an Asian actor to be in a prime-time television series.

If you're a sexy actress, it's hard to get serious roles. You get offered the same thing they've seen you in. People are like sheep, and they're like, 'Oh, that's what she does well.'

So the only things I was being allowed to audition for were small roles in comedies. It broke my heart. No one would see me for anything else. I knew, in order to open up my career, I had to leave or that's all I would ever be given.

The reality is that there are so few roles out there for women and for women of color, and I'm a character actor, this I know. And I'm getting to see more of the roles that are out there, but there aren't many. And zilch have been studio movies. Zilch.

I'd go for roles that would say 'for all ethnicities,' but what they're pretty much saying is, 'We want a Caucasian guy or a black guy.' One or the other.

I do think that being a BAME actor does make it difficult to avoid stereotypes.

The only way I get a leading role in a studio picture is if Ryan Gosling can't play it, which is clearly the case with 'Selma.' If this was a non-colour-specific character, it wouldn't be me. It just wouldn't.

I can't say I have enough experience with Hollywood to feel that I've encountered racism there. I can tell you that I did about five fruitless years of auditioning for voiceovers where I did variations on tacos and Latin accents, and my first screen role was as a bellhop on 'The Sopranos.'

Frankly, if people aren't going to cast me because I'm queer, than I don't want to work with them.

I am the most senior actor in 'Devdas,' yet I was not invited to Cannes. I guess these things happen in the industry.

A lot of the times when I've auditioned for parts in America, the answer is, 'Sorry, we need a bigger name.'

If you go for an audition, you have a character description, and for the women, it's always about being beautiful, sexy. And for the men it's more about the character than how he appears physically. That annoys me.