Gong Li Quotes

What if Macauley Culkin were black in 'Home Alone?' Most people would write it differently... but I would write it the same way.

I've shied away from playing Asian characters. if you look back, I'm playing characters that have no relevance to my ethnicity.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.

There's nothing worse than having a very strong female character and then suddenly having it go away.

I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.

Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes, and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.

I have never been one of those actors who say, 'Oh, my character wouldn't do this,' or 'My character never wears an orange shirt,' or any of the number of inane things I've heard on movie sets throughout my career.

If you're going to make black movies only about black people, that's as bad as white movies only about white people.

I've stayed away from doing 'urban film' because I just don't relate to the characters. I'm not going to take a role because I happen to have the same skin color.

I have a problem with the term 'leading man.' It's so limiting; it involves not upsetting anyone. Obviously, we have anti-heroes now, but if we're talking about the two tropes - character actor and leading man - I would so rather be a character actor. That's why I have a career.

Appropriation is a fact of life; no point in complaining about it. But if that's the way the game's being played, let's do it on both sides. I don't want some white guy making 'A Rage in Harlem III' if I can't do 'The Godfather V' or 'E.T. III.'

Since I first started acting, I never separated a character's sexuality from what they eat for breakfast. I just think it's sort of silly. If I can be a part of helping to overcome that puritanical thing in our culture, so be it. I'm happy about it.

I just don't want to be bored. That's the only criteria I have when I choose a role to play. I like it if the script is good and the director seems like he's gonna be good. But if I can find a variety of things to do, which I feel like I manage to do, as far as the actual performing goes and the character, that's huge for me. To be able to feel like I can do a fairly diverse array of things. I've been lucky in that way. I don't mind being stereotyped in some way and playing certain kinds of guys, but if I can find something to occasionally get a break from that, that would be nice.

Every time I do something, I think, 'Am I portraying Asian people in the way I want to be portrayed?'

Let's be real: more often than not, Hollywood does not have three-dimensional characters for women to play.

I've been working almost 20 years, and I think I've worked with maybe one black director of photography in that time. Maybe two women directors or DPs. Maybe. And I've done a lot of TV. That's a lot of people I've worked with.

My women characters should not exist only to play the 'love interest' of a male character.

Before 'Rangeela' happened to me, all that was offered to me were song-and-dance roles.

A police officer asked me why I agreed to play a Pakistani in my films. I told him that someone has to do different, na. If everyone will become Indian army officer then how the story will proceed?

I didn't want to get typecast doing an item number in 'Corporate,' so I didn't do it then.

Many number of times I say no when a producer or a director asks me to do a cop's role, unless the film is very interesting.

I'm not finding fault or blaming the industry, but the heroes have always dominated the film industry.

'Crazy Rich Asians' has been compared to 'Black Panther,' but I feel like that's a false equivalency. The idea that there's only this film for Asians and that film for African Americans - it's so binary. I don't think it's like that at all. There should be and will be many films and many stories. Hopefully this just opens the floodgates.

Both films and TV have their compunctions, their positives and negatives. For example, I explored a character at great length in 'Maryada'... which can be the ultimate high for an actor, but I won't get this luxury as a film person.

For Marvel, we've never looked at any of our characters in terms of gender, race, or religion. It truly is about, who is the best character for the story? If that character happens to be a woman, fantastic.