Roberto Aguire Quotes

When you're brown and Indian, you get offered a lot of doctor roles.

The lamest excuse that I get incessantly is, 'Oh, we're not going ethnic with that role,' so I can't go in for it, or I can't get the part, which is really stupid, because, in today's world, people look different.

In Australia, there just weren't strong roles for actors of colour. I was often being asked to turn up for commercials with a ghetto blaster on my shoulder. I thought, 'Are we in the '60s?'

Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes, and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.

What does it mean to be too black for Hollywood? It's self-explanatory. Hollywood has certain kinds of blacks that they like.

Usually, I'll be auditioning for the third lead, and there will be Latina actresses, Indian actresses, African American actresses because it will be like, 'Let's check off this box. We have our lead white girl, and we need an ethnic slot.'

I was always typecast as a Latina.

It's only in acting where I've heard in auditions, 'Can you black it up a little bit? Can you make her a little bit more urban?' And it's just like, 'What?' I don't even know the word for that.

Well, in the '80s and '70s, with the exception of Sidney Poitier and Brock Peters, maybe Ivan Dixon, if you were as big and black as I am, you were a bad guy. Simple. Because in real life, I scare people.

There aren't a lot of roles for sleepy-eyed black dudes.

Casting directors will often say that they are open to any ethnicity, but they're not.

I knew that there were black people in Africa, of course, unfortunately because of movies such as 'Tarzan.'

I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.

The funny thing is I'm not even Latin. I was constantly getting Latin roles, and I was like, I even was nominated for an award, and I was like, 'Let them know at the NAACP, the first white woman. Let them know I'm totally grateful, but I'm not Latin. I can't do that. I play Latin.'

When it comes to African Americans and African American actors, Hollywood has always felt that if you can make us laugh, that's fine, but we don't need to see you do a 'Schindler's List,' where there's no jokes or music or comedic through-line.

I'd be stupid not to take into consideration that there are certain things people will not consider me for because my name is Lopez. And I know I can do any kind of role. I don't want anybody to say, Oh, she can't pull this off. So those are barriers that you have to overcome.

I haven't gotten labeled as a Hispanic actor.

Watching 'Girls,' it was really angering for me at first, because I really had spent decades hiding unlikable, unattractive Jewish girls in likable, attractive, non-Jewish actors and characters.

I'm not at all fed up with British films, but I am fed up with playing upper-class people.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel prize.

Show business always tries to stereotype you, so that is something you have to fight against no matter who you are. A lot of actors who are of a minority background complain that they only get stereotyped roles, and they are 100 percent correct. However, it's also true that, no matter who you are, you get typecast as well.

When I got to Hollywood, at first I couldn't get a lot of jobs. So I grew a beard and look like a really bad Arab, and I started to get a lot of work because that's what they want.

I had to endure the worst time of all in terms of racial discrimination in Hollywood when I first started out. It was inconcievable to American directors and producers that a Mexican woman could have a lead role.

If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn't be very many roles for me to play.

Just because we have exotic last names or darker faces, our politics are assumed to be radical. But that is simply not the case.