Quotes About Representation

There was never a point where I thought, 'I'm going to do something Asian American.'

I always felt that just being an actor is difficult. Being an Asian-American actor doesn't make it more difficult. I see it as an opportunity and a chance to help other Asian-American actors coming along.

I didn't think it was possible for Asians to be actors.

Sometimes, we want Asians in the media, but we don't want them to talk about being Asian. For me, that's interesting because I'm from Asia. If you want me to be on television but I can't be Asian, I'm not being true to myself.

I have the LGBT audience behind me, and there's all these people that I want to make proud, and I want to do well aside from just myself.

I know that when I was a kid, and I was reading whatever I could get my hands on, I didn't associate myself with the girl characters.

I think people make certain assumptions about what they're interested in reading or what others would be interested in reading, and when they think of poor black people in the South, they don't think people are interested in reading about those people.

Just imagine if women's sport was on the TV all the time - how many more female athletes we would have?

There are so many kids in Africa who adore these athletes in the NBA and see themselves in them, even though we're so far removed.

I was one of those athletic African players.

When you think of Atlanta, you think of all these artists but what female? I want to be that.

What we realized is if you don't see yourself represented - no matter if it is on TV or in a club or whatever - you're probably not going to want to attend. You're not going to feel comfortable.

The women I'm attracted to playing I hope will mean something to someone.

One is always attracted to pieces of theatre with great roles for women.

It always felt that there were a lot of shows where there was a white lead female, who was attractive, and then I was being offered the kooky friend. And it was just like, 'Why can't this be the other way around?'

I want audiences to see me in different avatars.

We have to reach out to younger audiences. They need to see how they can see themselves as black women.

I know Asian actors out there won't even audition for a role that have an accent. But for me, I was the kid with an accent. I still have an accent to some degree.

I think I had something to prove to myself, that I could book a cis role and then if I did come out one day and start auditioning for trans roles, I could say, 'Look, I've already worked in a cis role.'

I've been in the industry from the age of 9, so I have an agent. That's how you get auditions.

I've been asked far too often, 'Can you be blacker?' I've gotten done with auditions and heard, 'We're not going to go black with this character.'

It seems that people are tired of everyone looking the same on television. And this seems especially true for white people. Even white people are tired of watching the same white people. That's why we've been importing them from Australia.

On the world stage, Australians are very good short filmmakers.

I have seen a lot of gay-themed films that didn't really express how I see being gay at this moment in the world. There never seemed to be a kind of authentic depiction of relationships.