David Oyelowo Quotes

It's very difficult to be asking other people for opportunities. It is much more empowering to be creating opportunities, to be the one who is saying, 'Look, I'm going to take this from the ground up and create a story that is meaningful to me as an Asian American and cast it with Asian Americans and have Asian Americans writing it.'

I grew up watching cinema in my country that wasn't telling stories about us, and we had to find a way to connect, and our references, our role models had nothing to do with us. And I'm so glad that it's changing.

Film is a mirror. I want to see more filmmakers. We all want to see ourselves.

Of course I want the things I write to reflect well on me or anyone who might feel represented by me, but also, I'm not writing a guidebook on how to be or how my people should be seen. I'm telling very specific stories.

When you have filmmakers like Justin Simien, writers, producers, actresses like Lena Waithe, who are people of color, they're creating their own content and saying, 'You know what? We're not going to wait on someone else to tell our story. We're going to do it ourselves. You can be a part of it or not.'

For minority actors, developing our own projects has to be the eventual path. We have a lot of stories to tell and a really unique voice. But none of that is going to be heard as long as we're just the hired hands, acting.

I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.

It's human nature that we come in our own flavours, and it doesn't make any sense to write a monochromatic or monocultural story unless you're doing something extremely small - a locked room-style story.

I'm not going to be labeled a black filmmaker. I am not here to just tell black stories. I'm here to tell all kinds of stories, musicals and dramas.

Audiences want great story telling; it's why white people watch my show 'Black in America.' It's why black people watch 'Latina in America.' All of that is statistically shown and proven but it was because it was good story telling about people who were outsiders.

I feel like I've started to create my own culture of being a voice for something, and that's what people want to know about. I love that because I am a woman and because I a rap, and I look the way I look, I can connect with the demographic of people who feel like they have a voice in me.

I like all things natural, and I love being Indian. So clothes-wise, I love wearing Indian. Does my wearing a salwar kameez instead of a dress make me less of an actor, less of a person?

I want to be able to work on a project that will give people around the world the chance to represent their own people, their own culture, their own stories, rather than just Hollywood - really, you know, dominated Hollywood. And that's a dream of mine.

I think all Latino actors want to be storytellers first. I want to be an actor first, and then I want to be Latina.

I remember watching Barbra Streisand and seeing Jennifer Grey in 'Dirty Dancing' - these were people who acted like me and looked like me. Now it's great that everyone on 'Glee' is so unique and people can relate to us and look up to us.

In America, I am brown; I'm 'of colour', so I would be offered Latin roles, and I've fought against that. I don't want to be put in a category, to be just offered the same sort of thing. For me, it's all about different roles, telling the stories of the great writers.

I'm proud of my roots. There are not many Asians in the music industry so it's important for me to tell people where I'm from.

I wasn't able to relate to anyone on TV growing up, so I wanted to bring my own experiences to the screen.

Ultimately, when I deliver something, a lot of times it will be from a black woman's perspective, but other times it will be just from a satirical, goofy perspective.

Jewish, black, Filipino, whatever the specificity is, it's specificity that makes a good story. And I think people are tired of seeing the same old shtick on network television. It's just a group of white people hanging out talking about their jobs. Who cares? We've seen that.

I consciously think about the ethnicity of every character that I create and cast. But one thing that is equally important is quality representation. It's not enough to put an African-American in there, a female in there, a gay character in there: How significant is their contribution? Can they drive the story?

Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.

Your look changes depending on your confidence, and then your beauty changes. When I first came to New York, all the people were saying, 'You look so Asian because you have a different eye shape.' They didn't really understand because they didn't really see that many Asian models.

I just happened to be Latino, and like any artist, I was trying to forge a career. If I opened doors for others, that's great, but nobody starts out with those aspirations.

It's so important for young girls of color - young girls of any color - to see diverse women as the heroes of their own story.