Nicole Byer Quotes

People just can't wrap their heads around two young black women in a major production.

Young Black actresses were not necessarily given the space in Hollywood to fully see ourselves.

As black women, we're miles behind our white counterparts in being offered the space to create and craft female characters in major blockbuster films.

Women are being welcomed into science fiction, but it's through the back door.

We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.

Are there differences between black actors' opportunities and white actors' opportunities? Yes, there are. It's been said.

Film was something I didn't really think about when I was young, because if you looked like me, you weren't a film star.

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 I started, there were no Indians on television or films, except for Sir Ben Kingsley. I was an actor in high school, college, and I played leads. And when I graduated, I knew that I couldn't go to Hollywood and audition for shows or films. I could try, but where was the evidence that it was going to happen?

The roles that I feel I get, or handed to me, or whatever, are not that interesting. I don't think it's a problem that's specific to black women. I think it's a problem that's specific to movie-making in America.

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.

One of the things about being a minority actor is that you don't have that opportunity as some of your counterparts to keep that flow, to constantly be going from one thing to the other, so when you see really great performances out there by some black folks, you know it's coming from somewhere deep, because they just don't work as much.

After Halle Berry does her films and Queen Latifah does her films, it's left to all the black, Latino and Asian actresses to fight over a couple of roles. I opted for some TV. There's just not a ton of work in film.

In not having an appointment at Harvard, I'm in the company of a great many people whose work I admire tremendously, in particular women of color.

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.

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.

It's passing strange that Obama, carried to a second term by women, blacks and Latinos, chooses to give away the plumiest Cabinet and White House jobs to white dudes.

I am Indian, and my home is Kampala. My world is already diverse. But films are financed by those who want to see themselves on screen, and it is a white male world. Still, it does feel like America is waking up. Let's hope it's the start of an avalanche.

When I was a little girl, there was no Variety Latino. When I was a little girl, there was no nothing. There were very few roles for people like myself.

Maybe I'm outdated in thinking this, but because I'm a young black woman and don't see very many being the lead in a film, I have this fear: 'Will I be working?'

When I see other working actresses that are brown, I get so excited. I get so excited when I see Zoe Kravitz, Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson, Ava Duvernay, and all these beautiful women working.

Black women do not have as many positive images in the media as we should.

There are so few roles out there. And even if it is a film that could be led by a black actress, how many times is that film going to get funded? Let's just be real. But it's not just black people. It's Asians, it's Hispanic people if you're not Salma Hayek. It's hard. It's hard to get films funded.

There are no black women geniuses that are being named in canons. I could name a bunch, but it's not part of common knowledge. It's not how the world is taught to think about black women.

I was doing a lot of networking in the Valley, and I found that it was not a very diverse environment, and most of the conferences and meetup events I went to, there weren't many women or people of color in those rooms.