BD Wong Quotes

It's tough to make it as an actor, tougher still to make it as an actress - the Screen Actors Guild is eager to provide the statistics to verify the latter.

A lot of British actors will look at America as such a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.

As an actor there's no autonomy, unless you're prepared to risk the possibility of starving.

As someone of Korean descent, I am certain my road was a bit hard. I have to say anyone who's an aspiring actor has a difficult road regardless of race.

It's kind of heartbreaking when I talk about it now, I still get very moved by the lack of opportunities that were available to myself and to the very few others who were Hispanic young actresses.

I had a meeting a while back with a big group of women - actors and producers and writers - who are all ethnic minorities and we just aired what we thought was happening and why, and someone said that, as a black or mixed race actress, you feel like you're renting space instead of carving out a career. But I'm just going to get on with it.

I had a different agent after 'Hook,' and they were, like, 'We don't know where to go with you. It's like you've already gone to the top of what's out there for a young Asian actor.' No one had done anything higher profile than that. And I'm, like, 'OK, but I'm only 15.'

I've seen a lot of poverty - coming up as a young child, lost hopes and dreams and people that never had a chance to have a decent quality of life. I believe we can do a lot greater than that.

The good ones push their luck to the limit - like Laurence Oliver. As actor and director, he will go just as far as he can.

When you are young, coming into this business, you're told how the business works, and you feel very lucky to be here and want to stick around, so you believe the data, and you believe the conversations you're having where they say, 'You can't have that kind of lead because they don't travel here,' or, 'People will think it's not for them.'

I'm like a Depression-era person as far as acting goes. It's sort of like, grab it while you can and make the most of what's in front of you. The first 'Avengers' opened up a host of things that I've been struggling to get made for a long period of time.

There are a lot more female writers wanting to direct their own material and hopefully will be given the opportunity.

I've always thought one of the tricks of being an actor for a long time is keeping yourself interested once you've figured out how to pay the rent.

As far as I'm concerned... there's a side to an actor that wants to go on and play a thousand different roles.

As an actress, you know there are limitations on what you can do creatively.

Everybody's got a puncher's chance in this game. I mean every single person on Earth. But my whole focus, my whole style, my whole dynamic is built around taking that power away from you. So where is the logic in why you're different from anybody else? There is no logic in it.

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.

Good shows have to get made in the first place... The regular ones don't excite me as an actor but at the end of the day, I have to work to earn my bread and butter.

I think Australia focuses on people that had a big start at home, like 'Home and Away' or 'Neighbours' graduates, and the truth is those shows are pretty white for the most part. The diverse actors go straight to the States because that is where more diverse stories and opportunities are being presented.

I grew up under the politics of my size and my skin. I grew up under the politics of the sound of my voice and a lack of agency, or a feeling of a lack of agency, and not always being able to find myself in images that were in the media.

If the power was equitable, then our boards, then our commissions, our contracting, our wealth-building opportunities would all look very different.

Everybody is not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. There are only a very small percentage of those types of people, you know what I mean?

All my life, I struggled to get roles.

I've never been more aware of my Asianness and femaleness than working in Hollywood.

I didn't really want to be a filmmaker, growing up. Other than Spike Lee's movies, I would think, 'Where is a place for me?' We were so damn poor that it just seemed too far beyond.