Justin Simien Quotes

A black actor is perfect for 'Kojak.'

I'm kind of in a middle space, being marketed as a biracial actor. Roles are written either stereotypically black, or they're written 'normal,' which is just code for white.

I always say it's hard to cast an African-American film sometimes because those kinds of actors just aren't out there.

When you're black in Hollywood, you know, your first role is going to be on a crime drama. That's - everybody knows that.

There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid marveled at the electability of Barack Obama because, unlike previous black candidates, Mr. Obama was 'light-skinned' and lacked a 'Negro dialect.'

I'd go for roles that would say 'for all ethnicities,' but what they're pretty much saying is, 'We want a Caucasian guy or a black guy.' One or the other.

The only way I get a leading role in a studio picture is if Ryan Gosling can't play it, which is clearly the case with 'Selma.' If this was a non-colour-specific character, it wouldn't be me. It just wouldn't.

Any character who had dark skin, I got all those parts. I could play a Polynesian, East Indian princess, whatever.

When I go to the movies, I'm expected to identify with all of the characters, and most of them are white. But when you put a black character in there, somehow the white audience isn't expected to identify with them. That's a problem.

I tend to play characters that aren't supposed to black or written black.

As a black actress, all I was offered in British film was the best friend role, whereas in TV I was offered a whole spectrum of parts.

I was a black singer with a white voice, a perfect pop voice.

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.

If I were to wait only for roles that clarify my racial makeup, I'd be waiting for a very, very long time.

I've been the best player on every team that I played on, so if I can't be the poster child of your team, then what else is it? It's got to be a black-white issue. Every white player I know who's the best player on their team is the poster child of that team.

I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor.

I am definitely a person of color.

One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.

It is not easy to get parts in mainstream films for most people of color. Hollywood and British writers are not writing parts for us, or the directors are not interested in casting us in parts that are color-blind.

There remains a degree of anti-black intellectualism in entertainment. Middle and upper-middle class blacks have often been portrayed as buffoons in popular culture; witness the characters of Carlton Banks on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and Braxton P. Hartnabrig on 'The Jamie Foxx Show.'

I read the script, and I knew it was a good part. It was written for a white actor. That's what I'm up against - I have to try to make roles happen for me that aren't written black.

I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.

If you are going to call a film a 'black film' then you have to make a film that represents everyone that's black, which is almost impossible. That is why white films are not called white films, they are just called 'films.'

As an ambiguously non-white actor, I've been able to play light-skinned African American guys, Latinos, and I don't think that I've ever had to play some kind of ethnic stereotype or something that was typed specifically for a person of color.