I think I was told numerous times in the industry that nobody wants to watch a guy on a keyboard.
When I tell people that I am acting in Telugu, they ask me if I have to overact.
I definitely don't feel like I'm what Hollywood thinks of when they think of a Latina actress at all. They can't wrap their minds around it.
People are always going to assume I got my roles because of my father. There's not much I can do about that. He and I talk about the business sometimes, but he's my dad.
I love America. I eagerly became a citizen. I have no bitterness toward those casting directors who dismissed me because of my accent, nor toward the producers and directors who wanted to cast me but thought the audience wouldn't accept my accent. I think they're selling their audience short.
In this industry there's this ridiculous connotation with women shows that's it's got to be difficult, and it's not true.
I had a publisher who felt comics were just for little kiddies, so he never wanted me to use words of more than two syllables.
I couldn't get roles as bad guys. They could see John Travolta as a gangster but not me, really. But, you know, that's just how things are.
I think I happened to work with sort of a bunch of slightly difficult male directors when I was a kid. I've since worked with lots of male directors that I love, so I no longer see the distinction gender-wise.
There were a lot of stereotypes that I had to break of how people in the entertainment industry do business.
In New York I was always offered the hot, sexy roles. But in L.A. I was offered the plain, dowdy roles. It says a lot about the difference between the coasts.
Some people in the industry feel TV actors can't do anything else.
If you work in casting, it's sort of not cool to want to act. A lot of people think that casting directors are frustrated actors, but it wasn't true with any of the casting people I knew.
There's a misperception about actors that we actually choose the roles we end up doing - it's more that we're chosen for them.
A lot of people, when they look at the whole trans thing, they think,'Oh, you're transgender, and in the fashion industry, which is very pro-LGBT, so you don't have any problems because it's a progressive place.' But that's not the reality.
