Vincent Rodriguez III Quotes

I'd love to be in a period drama - that's my obsession. But being a mixed-race actress, there aren't so many roles you're right for.

For the most part, the roles Asians can get aren't necessarily well-rounded, and more often than not, they're stereotypes. But that's all we have. And then we see each other all the time at auditions, because we're all going for the same role. I've made a lot of friends that way.

Depictions of race have changed so much since, like, the '50s, where white people just played every race. But the pendulum swings both ways: I'm Filipino-American. If I had to wait for a Filipino role to come out to get work, I couldn't eat. There are barely any roles out there.

The reality is that there are so few roles out there for women and for women of color, and I'm a character actor, this I know. And I'm getting to see more of the roles that are out there, but there aren't many. And zilch have been studio movies. Zilch.

Women and minorities have excelled beautifully in comedy, but very few women are the lead in a drama.

That's one of the problems with Hollywood. It'll say 'policeman,' and an unless it says 'black policeman,' a lot of times you won't even get the opportunity to read for it, which is kind of crazy, but that's the way it is.

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.

Usually, if there is a woman's part in a piece, there's only one, so you've got no other actresses to work with.

I know some black actresses who have to wait every 19 films for a role. I can be cast in practically every one as a young white male.

When you start making a movie, people want to know: Who's the star power? And very early, I realized there's not a lot of 26-year-old black actors who have been given the opportunity to be the lead of a film. It's, like, Michael B. Jordan, and then we're done.

I don't want to be super aggressive, but I think it's an issue that the population of America isn't reflected accurately in a lot of movies. I'm just disappointed that there isn't an Asian leading man or an Asian leading woman. There's an obvious gap that should be filled.

It's very rare that Black actors get an opportunity to do period pieces and to have a breadth of characters to choose from in their work.

I want to break the stereotype that when an actress becomes a mother, she can only do certain type of roles.

I found a movie called “Light in the Piazza.” I finally made the movie with Olivia de Havilland and myself, but initially there was no way I could make that movie, so I went to work on becoming that character. They told me they had an Italian [actor], and I said, “That’s a Cuban boy!” His name was Tomas Milan. I thought that’s the craziest thing I’d ever heard: They have a Cuban who’s going to play an Italian, and I can’t play it because I’m an American.

There's so little representation of people who look like me behind the camera that it makes you want to say yes to any opportunity out of desperation. It puts you in a situation where you can't make your best work. Diversity for cheap.

I hadn't looked at all the Nobel Prizes and thought, my goodness, there's no women. So it was a little bit surprising to me.

Now that I'm out there and it's known that I'm trans, I think that sometimes might hinder my opportunity in snagging a big cis role.

It's not nice to say it - I know female musicians, but not so many rappers. I can't think of one I idolize, which is sad, but I'm hoping that will change.

I wasn't, like, pretty enough to be the ingenue; I wasn't 'character' enough to be the goofball sidekick. I'm kind of ethnically ambiguous.

For a woman, there is a complete dearth of roles to do. Abroad, you really have good roles, and by good roles, I don't mean the film has to be women oriented. I wouldn't mind playing a well-written, small role.

Any comedic roles that I've gone out for usually end up going to a white woman or a gay man instead.

After 'Champion,' I got like 20,000 psychopath roles! And they wanted me to strip and show my body in every film. But I have tried to balance my roles.

The biggest thing about 'Lady Macbeth' is the fact that people are so surprised that this woman is so amazing, and really, it shouldn't be so amazing that this incredible character is on our screens.

To get even realer with you for a second, as a black actor, as a performer of color, I don't know how many more roles like Aaron Burr are gonna come along for me.

As soon as you start looking into roles which are specifically Asian, Black, or Latina, you start looking at stereotypes. That's the issue minority actors face - it's not that we don't want to play our ethnicities; it's that, often, the role that's written for our ethnicity is a stereotype.