Mena Massoud Quotes

We cheer everyone who goes off to Hollywood and tells American stories but telling Australian stories is the greatest thing you can do.

People have to identify with their own stories, with their own lives, so a movie belongs to a country and to a culture. Sometimes we can share, but it's very rare.

It's something I want to do going forward - make a movie that is commercial and universal and will play in any movie theater or living room in the States or the UK, but is definitively Canadian. I don't think there's such a thing as prohibitively Canadian.

When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris.

I feel like Canadian movies should be as good or better than the competition because of the talent we have here.

I've seen an increasing willingness to hire Canadians for lead roles that shoot up here. When I started, they would always just fly in L.A. people to do the lead roles.

Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity.

In all my shows, I'm not interested in the iconic shots of the Capitol and the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I'm always interested in trying to get the culture of the place - trying to get it right.

It's not simply that British films do well at the box office and generate revenue, it's that they provide a window to the world of what Britain and its culture is about.

In America, I am brown; I'm 'of colour', so I would be offered Latin roles, and I've fought against that. I don't want to be put in a category, to be just offered the same sort of thing. For me, it's all about different roles, telling the stories of the great writers.

I usually make sure that my stories are from Africa or my own background so as to highlight the cultural background at the same time as telling the story.

Film is our literature, so we should tell stories that are apropos of our culture, in that we can learn something about ourselves.

There's something that people misunderstand about screen quotas. It's not about rejecting or hating other countries' films, but about protecting our domestic film industry.

I'm Icelandic, from this small country where there was very limited access to fashion when I was growing up, and so, for me, it's really important to have a product that's relevant for this global customer.

The coming of age of Canadian culture may not depend on our ability to protect it at home, but to project it on the world’s stage.

How is it that the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue allowed such a destructive and parodied image of itself to become the intellectual coin of the realm overseas?

I grew up watching cinema in my country that wasn't telling stories about us, and we had to find a way to connect, and our references, our role models had nothing to do with us. And I'm so glad that it's changing.

I try to represent specific experiences of specific characters, and that's all I want to try to do. I don't ever try to think about representing a culture, because its impossible, and someone will fault you. And it just doesn't interest me.

When I saw the 'Geronimo' script and was offered the part, it was overwhelming in that it brought back all of those feelings - made me feel what it's like to be in those shoes, the same shoes Geronimo himself might have been in.

The audience will show up if you have authenticity. Like 'Moonlight,' there was stuff in there that is so specific to that community where the filmmakers grew up. Even if I don't understand everything they're talking about, I will love it if I feel that it's real.

It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.

I have two passions in my life. One is to raise the awareness of the internment of Japanese-American citizens. My other passion is the theater. And I've been able to wed the two passions.

When I was growing up, I felt like no one gave Canadians a chance. And now that they see we have quality in Canada and it's amazing to see.

Some Mexicans go to Hollywood and lose career in Mexico because they play imitation. I don't want this to happen to me.

A lot of the time, because we don't have many Latinx scenarios on the landscape, not just in television or film and other media, we haven't gotten the chance to tell our story from our point of view.