Sonoya Mizuno Quotes

When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like 'Bird,' I use 90% black people.

I would love to see an Asian American superhero.

There needs to be more film directors of colour. They bandy about the word 'diversity' a lot, but when I say 'of colour,' I mean Asian, black - I mean people of all colour. We need to have those voices given the opportunity, not told that their films will not be distributed or will not sell well abroad.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.

I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.

'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

The lack of diversity, specifically in genre films and the superheroes our kids grow up watching and emulating, they can't really identify with. When you see the same thing, over and over again, and it seems not to speak of you and your heritage and your culture, it leaves you out of this world a little bit.

Once there are more African Americans and Asian Americans behind the scenes as producers, writers, and directors, I think more inclusive casting will happen.

It's not enough even to have one black Barbie... because black women are not a monolith.

It's hard in America as a writer of color, an actor of color, not to get caught up in race and culture. But you're also supposed to be able to write characters and scenes in a way where it's just a matter of fact, a component.

In England, you feel like a member of the revolutionary guard the minute you even mention race. But I do think that the OscarsSoWhite phenomenon will have to reflect back on England. What people are essentially saying is that they want to see more diverse stories. It's not about putting three black people in the back of the shot.

The studios gotta start making more stuff where black folks get quality stuff. But I can't trip about that because I've been making movies for 35 years, and I've played everything from an old lady to a donkey, so I can't be on here talking about, 'They don't give us enough roles' and diversity.

I'm black and white, so either, sometimes, you're not considered by the breakdown of the script: you're not 'black enough' for this role. Or you're not 'white enough' for this role. Or, like, looking up to people, who do I identify with? And not seeing Barbies that maybe look like me.

If you're going to make black movies only about black people, that's as bad as white movies only about white people.

It's so important to create roles and characters and projects that feature black people in a way that's not specifically targeted towards the niche market, which is, like, a black movie is created, and it's produced and pitched so that only black people will watch it.

I've stayed away from doing 'urban film' because I just don't relate to the characters. I'm not going to take a role because I happen to have the same skin color.

We all had to dodge the idea we were spokespeople for our races. Like, 'Hey, it's the Mexican Guy! The Filipino! The Chick!' We've always stood up to it and said, 'Fine, bring it on and we'll show you how we rock.'

Just because we finally have a Latino family on TV doesn't mean we're up there to lecture people about what it means to be Latino.

It's important, as a young person of color, to see yourself reflected in the media.

Creating more characters that represent historically marginalized and historically disenfranchised people in television and film is certainly important.

It's far too rare an experience for Asian American girls to see themselves in media.

What if Macauley Culkin were black in 'Home Alone?' Most people would write it differently... but I would write it the same way.

You just never see people of different ethnicities in period dramas.

I feel like we need to make new superheroes, African-American superheroes, that people would accept.

Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.