Quotes About Identity

I sat at the popular table, but I always felt really geeky.

I was what's known as a floater. I could sit at the edge of most cafeteria tables, but was never a part of any one group. I was also a dork. And still am. And proud!

I felt more comfortable playing other people than being myself, when I was a kid. And then, the tables turned. Through my performances, I've become more comfortable with who I am, and then I just bring more of myself into the people that I play.

Bowie is my dad's stage name, so I was never, ever called Zowie Bowie. The tabloids liked that because it rhymed.

I focus on the fact that none of what the tabloids said defined me.

Music is the only place that I can have no taboos. In real life I have a lot of taboos, and I can't talk about everything easily.

It's a good thing that columnists don't make homosexuality their last taboo anymore. But I wish the columnists themselves would come out too.

I think it's a little bit taboo to have a coming-of-age story where a girl explores her sexuality. That just doesn't happen a lot.

I'm in a place where I feel comfortable not being a chef anymore. That's taboo in our industry. 'Chef' is supposed to be the ultimate end of the road.

I was drawn to people that were expressing feeling because that was what was taboo in my family, expressing feeling. And that was what I was made of.

You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny, and all the things that a person could be. If you can achieve that, you feel great. You so rarely get to do that as an actress in general, but as a black actress, it's almost never.

I'm a British intern going in. I'm hoping that John will just kind of tackle it from who this person is and what she's about rather than trying to go in on her culture. We need to move a step forward than that.

My films often have a spiritual dimension which comes from my Muslim background, and I'm happy to tackle that in cinema.

It isn't easy being a star kid that way when you have to tackle all the pressure and still make your mark.

It's really odd, but whatever we do and whatever style we might tackle, we always sound like us.

That's what acting is about - for me, at least - tackling different personas and characters.

I have done some tacky films, but then they were all my decisions, and I'm happy to have made those because they have made me who I am.

A flag translates into everything, from tacky souvenirs to the names of organizations and the way that flags function.

When you see a movie, they always put the Latino on the bad side or in a tacky way. It's not like that. Latinos are shining like a diamond.

You don't need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn't make you a taco.

The fact that we are playing Latinos does not mean that you have to be shouting 'fiesta,' 'taco,' or talking in the same way most Latin characters do in American television.

They're completely American. When I served my son falafel in a pita the other day, he said, 'Daddy, this taco is very good.'

Growing up, I was taught that a woman should lower her gaze so that men could never know her thoughts. The so-called modesty of Arab women is, in fact, a war tactic.

At heart, I'm a dude from South Central Los Angeles. We roll the way we roll because we had survival tactics; we had to learn how to adapt. That's just me.