Quotes About Stigma

I've had a year out of work, more, and just toughed it out. There are those who think that all actors are overpaid. I beg to differ.

You've got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

American culture at large has failed working mothers.

Where I live in Manhattan and where I work at ABC, people say conservative the way people say child molester.

I never worry about the social backlash against my work because I'm a man in a dress, and somehow American society creates a buffer on how severe things are when you put a man in a dress.

The trouble is when people read about authors, they don't feel compelled to read the authors' work.

People always try to put a title or a symbol on you. If you work in a bank, you are a banker. For me, they see a co-founder of Facebook.

If you're a lead actor, people are just waiting to say 'you're too old' or 'you're too unhip.' If you're a supporting actor, you can just work forever.

I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.

I come from the school of being (stereotyped) since I was five years old. And I know that I should not be putting my personal issues on the table or letting them effect my work.

People say as a woman actor your career is over at 40. But then they told me I would never work again after I was 16.

The stigma that used to exist many years ago, that actors from film don't do television, seems to have disappeared. That camera doesn't know it's a TV camera... or even a streaming camera. It's just a camera.

Most people, if you live in a big city, you see some form of schizophrenia every day, and it's always in the form of someone homeless. 'Look at that guy - he's crazy. He looks dangerous.' Well, he's on the streets because of mental illness. He probably had a job and a home.

The doctor gave me several warnings: Never tell anyone unless necessary, because I might be ostracized. Call it 'seizure disorder,' not epilepsy, because fewer people would be frightened. Try to choose a profession as free from stress as possible.

In strictly medical terms, there's no difference between HIV and diabetes; they're not curable, but they're very, very highly treatable, and early information is power. The only thing - literally the only thing - that is different is the stigma. And we have to overcome it, because it is now the only reason people are dying.

Going into a room and saying, 'I'm a black lesbian' - it's a strike against you.

Obviously, there's the seedy side of the strip club world and pole dancing. But, pole dancing, as an art form, is really beautiful. It's been hyper-sexualized because it's associated with strippers, but if you think about it, just in terms of other kinds of dancing, they're using an instrument to create these amazing dance forms.

One girl who stands out was this Miami stripper. She still lives with her mother and father, and they know she strips. They call her by her stripper name, Freaky Red.

I really wanted to do a deep-dive into the idea that women are always called 'crazy,' and we are painted with such broad strokes because it's so easy to stereotype women and write them off. I got tired of that, and I wanted to explain: We are not crazy. There's a method to our madness.

People always told me that nothing would match my face, my structure other than roles of sophisticated, educated women. I felt it was an insult to me.

If I did the structure and had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he's heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it - just to prove that he's gay?

'Padman' was about my early life and struggles, including my wife calling me a psycho and leaving me.

There's something really specific about being a Hoover and the pejorative term that was multigenerationally tethered to economic hard times, misery and antipathy for the struggles of ordinary people.

I grew up in the 80s with a single mum constantly struggling to get by on benefits, with a political establishment that derided single-parent families, and downplayed the hard work and poverty facing various aspects of Britain.