N. T. Rama Rao Jr. Quotes

Growing up in Virginia, I was surrounded by two different cultures.

Where I grew up in the North-east, the community there, and the way people relate to one another, goes very deep. But I don't define myself as a Northerner in that I don't live in the North.

I was raised to believe that New England is the best place on the planet.

True, I was born and raised in Chennai, fluent in Tamil, but essentially, I am a Telugu guy and a Telugu actor.

I was born in London. In a lot of ways I'm English, but I have this Iranianness, this culture instilled by my parents, by my family.

I love Chennai and its people. My mother always tells me, 'You should have been born a South Indian!'

We are all proud to be British. But we also feel more local and regional allegiances.

Straight up, I'm from Waldorf, Maryland, you guys. Let's not forget that.

Where I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it wasn't the south-east and it wasn't the deep south and it wasn't quite the south-west either.

When I was growing up, we spoke Egyptian, we ate Egyptian food, we had other Egyptian friends. It was my father's preference.

I really didn't grow up religious, and I didn't grow up acknowledging my Muslim identity. For me, I was a British Pakistani.

If you ask me what am I, I might say 'I am a Californian,' and if George Bush were here, he would say 'I am a Texan.'

Southerners are also like ethnic groups in that they have a sense of group identity.

By background I'm both a Quaker and a Yorkshireman, which I like to call double jeopardy.

I grew up in The Bronx. I mean, I was born and raised in New York City. And I started singing in Spanish because I was always just connected to my Latin roots.

I was born in Mumbai, but I grew up in England, and then my adulthood has been in the States. I'm an American stuffed with an English person with an Indian person inside. I feel like those things kind of inform me in some way, which I think helps me as an actor.

People ask 'How do you get so eh-ish?' I don't know if it's just because so much of my family still lives in Canada and I finished studies up there.

My parents were immigrants.

I was born and raised in New York, so I was blessed - or some say cursed - with a strong New York accent.

I don't think my background in Zambia has really affected my lens because my classical training has been Western-style. But it's fantastically fortuitous to have been born African because I don't feel I have a vested interest to the U.S. or China or wherever.

My whole life, I grew up with this double vision, this vision of America but also Latin community.

I am neither a Serb nor a Bulgarian, I am a South Slav.

I'm not opposed - we manufacture a lot of socks in North Carolina - I just choose not to wear them. It's a Southern thing. It's a cultural thing.

It is important to me that I was not raised in Los Angeles.

I always wanted my kids to be proud of their heritage.