diversity in roles Quotes

I have never been stereotyped in one kind of character. I have been a part of reality shows, events, singing and dancing. No one has ever told me, 'She will fit only in this character or this look.' It has never happened to me, luckily.

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.

If people choose to judge how you look, that's their situation. I didn't feel that it was a problem. I've played all kinds of parts. I've played glamorous, and unglamorous, and all kinds of people. People want to pigeon hole you, I think.

Child actors become types. The cutesy type, the funny type, the dark type. Any time you're a type, your career's over. It's not been effortless for me; I've had bumps in the road, you know? I was in Dumb And Dumberer. It's not been a flawless thing so far. But all in all, I'm proud of it. Most proud of it because of the diversity. Because the genres are different.

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.

We're in crisis mode as black actresses. It's not only in the sheer number of roles that are offered and that are out there, but the quality of the roles. The quality - and therein lies the problem. We're in deprivation mode because me, Alfre and Phylicia, we're in the same category. Whereas if you take a Caucasian actress, you have the one who are the teens, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - they're all different. There are roles for each of them. But you only have two or three categories for black actresses.

I just want to keep the diversity and the options open. In terms of what I'm looking for, I'd like to do a lead action role. Whilst I'm still young and I still have the looks, I want to take the helm and be a renegade cop, or something like that. He's got to have a bit of an edge, but that would be nice.

I don't turn my nose up at anything. If it's a great part, it's a great part. It's not like, "I don't make studio films; I work for David Lynch and maybe a few American Playhouse directors, but that's it" - I'd love to do a box-office hit.

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.

I feel quite blessed that I can actually balance between the two worlds, because a lot of really talented actors I know end up getting set in a certain category and no one will ever buy that they can exist outside that category, even though you know full well that they can.

I'd like to see more Asian-American roles where the ethnicity of the character can be swapped to another. We can, of course, play the stereotypical ninja, the martial arts master, the accountant, the doctor, but we can be more than that!

I'm not trying to turn into Eddie Murphy, and just do kids movies the rest of my career. I'm going to still do a wide variety of movies, as well as do hardcore rap.

As a performer, I don't like to play the same thing over and over. I like to play it and let it go and move on. That's also why television hasn't really been something that I've done.

If I find the right character, I don't care if it's a film, a television show or a play, I'm gonna do it. Everybody crosses over and it's just one big pool of stuff now.

As actors you don't want to have one label. You'd rather have seven.

I will play the characters with last names like Sanchez and Gonzalez until the day I die, but I also want to play the 'Michelle Smiths.'