Diversity in Acting Quotes

I think diversity for most actors is such a blessing. It's something definitely I've strived for.

I want to bring something different to every film. I get a bit tired of actors who kind of are the same character in every film that they do.

I think that actresses can be in all different shapes and sizes, but it is a profession, and as an actor, your body is one of your big tools. So you've got to be fit in a sense.

I've heard other actors saying they don't want to play a character with an accent at all. To me, that's kind of an insult to somebody like me who did have an accent.

The advantage my looks gave me was that I wasn't limited to just playing Indian roles when I was abroad, and I've been abroad for almost twenty-five years.

I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity, and that includes all kinds of parts.

As an actor, variety is the spice of life. I love theatre… it's what I enjoy the most. But a bit of TV, a bit of film, a bit of stage - what more could you ask for?

You're an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor. And you shouldn't be limited by your extraction.

As a musician, I don't have one thing that's "my thing." I like to create, and have a lot of outlets for it. Dustin Hoffman is one of the guys that sets a model for me, because of how good he is at being such different characters. Every time you see DeNiro, he's pretty much DeNiro - great, but DeNiro. Hoffman is different every time, depending on his character. That's how I see myself as a performer.

In my life I do look up to actors, at my age I ask myself, who else is playing interesting parts at my age which is very difficult for a female actor. On top of it, being a minority, having come from China makes it harder.

I have never wanted to be typecast, one of those actors who plays a variation on a one-note theme. So just as I enjoy playing a wide variety of characters, from good to bad to ugly to cute - so I have enjoyed of late working in film and television, as well as in theatres of various sizes and shapes.

I happen to be one of those lucky people who says that she's a working actor. And to always be working is very fulfilling and I'm just lucky because the opportunities just came up. And as an Asian American female actor, the opportunities have been furthering, have been widening all across the years. And I can say that there are many young people who see that the opportunities are expanding, as well as you can make it yourself.

I'm not just considered a former child star. I'm not considered a black actress. I'm not considered an actress. I've done roles that were written for men. First and foremost, is God, I definitely believe in Him, having kind of mapped out what my destiny was going to be. Therefore, I wasn't just going to be put in just that one box or kept in that one place.

A lot of straight actors are actively searching for gay roles because it is something different to do.

I'm definitely interested in taking on roles where I don't look like myself. But I'm not saying I'm going to go out of my way to play a disabled person in order to win an Oscar.

Obviously, I'm quite young and I haven't really thought about what films I'd like to go into yet. I love challenging films, really. I'd prefer to do some gritty, challenging roles. That would be awesome, and really fun. I want to be as diverse as possible.

I know I'm different. Even when I think about an acting career, there are so many limited roles to begin with. I have the ability to be Spanish, Indian, Italian, black, Persian. What roles do I see that compliment that?

My major intention for coming to Hollywood - besides the fact that I was just enamored with acting from a very young age - was that I was tired of seeing wimpy Asian actors.

You want somebody who's capable of being diverse in the characters they play, and you want a big name that's going to bring attention to the filmmakers and to the project.

Even when I went to America I didn't work for four years. It wasn't like I came to New York and it was the land of milk and honey. It was just as much of a hard graft. But there's a lot more opportunity nowadays across the board for actors, no matter what color you are, with the Internet and small productions.

There are so many brilliant, trained actors of color in America. If you just think about it, every year in the spring Julliard and NYU and Yale and hundreds of schools across the country graduate classes of trained actors, and in those classes are actors of color. So to say that there aren't enough actors of color is factually inaccurate.

I never ever played the lead role in a play, except at school. I guess the industry that we're in, boys that look like me don't get the lead role.