When I was a little girl, there was no Variety Latino. When I was a little girl, there was no nothing. There were very few roles for people like myself.
I have friends who died being successful bohemians. Today, I see people my age who are gifted but who insisted on staying in this group, and it's beaten them so bad. They have to spend so much time on ego maintenance, they can't get any work done. They'd be very happy to sell out, but there are no buyers, and that hurts.
In L.A., I was a talent manager for many years. I represented many African-American actors. After a while, I became disheartened over the shortage of roles for African Americans.
The root causes of the gang culture lie right across the policy spectrum - but they can all be found in the same areas geographically: worklessness; family breakdown; educational failure and addiction.
It's very hard as an Asian actress to get seen for anything which isn't specifically Asian in England.
Hollywood does not write parts for people like me, an elderly gentleman, and when they find out you're crippled, forget about it. No, I'll never work again.
In Hollywood, there's not a ton of roles for Asian people. So a lot of it is waiting and waiting and waiting.
One of the things about being a minority actor is that you don't have that opportunity as some of your counterparts to keep that flow, to constantly be going from one thing to the other, so when you see really great performances out there by some black folks, you know it's coming from somewhere deep, because they just don't work as much.
I'm not sought after. I never get enough work. It's the history of my career. There just isn't anything to turn down, let me put it that way.
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.
It was frustrating at Arsenal, obviously. For a year and a half, it went from bad to worse. I could no longer continue like that. I could not bring myself to spend another year at Arsenal and remain a reserve, even a second reserve.
We live in a country [USA] where the belief is that anyone can succeed, but for so many here, and for the majority of the world, that's not the case. In many parts of the world, women and poor people are at a huge disadvantage - certain rights and protections don't exist, and they don't have the chance of upward mobility.
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?
Women are from their very infancy debarred those Advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached.
I always think it's really hard if you are Asian or Chinese to be really in Hollywood. There are not so many really great characters for you.
And one thing to be remembered: it is not that the people who are poor, starving, become frustrated with life - no. They cannot become frustrated. They have not lived yet - how can they be frustrated? They have hopes. A poor man always has hopes that something is going to happen - if not today then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow; if not in this life then in the next life.
The African American community is so under-served in the entertainment industry.
If North American musicians would only know how uncomfortable life is for European musicians.
Let's be real: more often than not, Hollywood does not have three-dimensional characters for women to play.
There are so many people who've come before me who deserved to be tired. Who didn't have the opportunities, who didn't have the access, who didn't have the money, who didn't have the influence, who didn't have the voice.
I was always told that I'd have to do a movie with a white guy in order to get the money. That's the way it was. That made me feel that I should have chosen some other profession, so I could have gotten my just deserts.
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.
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?
I wasn't getting a lot of game-time at Liverpool, you guys could see that. I was just playing cup games and stuff like that.
After those first two BAFTAs, I didn't really get offered anything, which makes you think, 'Oh, no!' And, after I finished the second series of 'Broadchurch,' nothing came up for six months, which really is a long time, and I got a bit panicky.
