Mustafa Ali Quotes

I've always wanted to be in comedy... growing up with Asian parents and not seeing yourself represented in media - it was always just a daydream.

I was raised on Hong Kong movies with Asian stars, so I'm still learning about Hollywood underrepresenting certain people.

At age 10, or even 15, it would have meant the world to me to see a Pakistani girl portrayed positively, let alone as a comic book superhero.

There's a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren't enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture.

There's not enough black films out there. There's not enough Latin films, or films that have an Asian, Indian or Middle Eastern lead. The list goes on and on.

I'd never been around or seen a black showrunner, and in some ways you wish that it wasn't a big deal.

Growing up, there were no families on TV that looked like mine.

I didn't grow up with a lot of role models necessarily when I started out - there weren't many people who looked like me on TV. Not in England.

The fact that I am a Filipino actor playing a Filipino role is crazy. Filipinos are the second largest Asian minority in the United States, and we're hardly represented in the media and on television.

There are little Indian girls out there who look up to me, and I never want to belittle the honor of being an inspiration to them. But while I’m talking about why I’m so different, white male show runners get to talk about their art.

It's understandable why TV hasn't been diverse because a lot of TV writers are white dudes from Harvard. And white dudes from Harvard aren't going to immediately want to write about trans issues. They're not immediately going to want to write about a Filipino family.

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.

I grew up watching television. I'm a television addict. I had all these heroes, but they didn't look like me.

I don't actually think I'm treated unfairly or anything. If anything, I sometimes can't understand why I don't see myself and the people I know represented more in films. Unless I'm going to go out and write them myself, I don't feel like I can really complain about it.

I just hope that there's a market for somebody who looks like me as the lead of a rom-com, you know?

Honestly, I was watching Marvel films and was always crestfallen: Where are the super-Asians? People are looking to be represented by their heroes.

I don't differentiate between black and Latino actors. We're in the same struggle to be represented in a way that's even close to honest. And I can tell you that the amount of Latino characters I can point at and say, 'That's what my life experience looks like' - I can't think of any off the top of my head besides Jimmy Smits in 'Mi Familia.'

There's a reality that the market is changing, and the stories of the Latino community need to be out because there's a huge audience in need of films that would represent them.

It is shocking that the screen does not reflect the way the world is and the diversity in the world... What the world really looks like should be on screen, and it isn't.

Point-blank, there is not enough diversity in media.

I think that a lot of actors of color have said that it's a wonderful thing to play a role that doesn't have a race and that is kind of open to any sort of interpretation. I completely understand that, but at the same time, I just want Asian characters that are well-written.

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 seems that people are tired of everyone looking the same on television. And this seems especially true for white people. Even white people are tired of watching the same white people. That's why we've been importing them from Australia.

When I was growing up, in the '80s and '90s, I just never really saw myself reflected in the things that I had a liking for. It makes a difference.

I'm Asian, and I'm an actress, and I've been doing this since I was a teenager, so if anyone understands the conversation about misrepresentation and underrepresentation, it's me. I live and breathe it; this is my life.