Nico Santos Quotes

As an actor, it was important to me to play gay characters because, growing up, it was something I never really saw done on television and in film, and I was questioning why there weren't more people like me.

The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.

I know when I was growing up in New York, whenever I turned on the television, I never saw a face that looked like me. Whenever there was an Asian person on television, it would be a huge event, me calling to my older sister 'There's an Asian person on television!' It was unheard of back then.

I've heard people tell me there's never been a gay character like Agron on TV before, and some fans have even thanked me because they now feel like they have a gay action hero, and it's very endearing to hear that kind of stuff. But I just played him the way he was and tried to do right by the character.

There were so few examples of Asian or Asian-American lead characters on American TV or even in the movies. And the ones that have existed for so long were either stereotypical or offensive in some way, or just not reflective of the lives of people in the community.

I personally always have a hard time relating to queer characters in media because I didn't really see myself in them. They were kind of pigeonholed early on as the gay character, and they would naturally end up with the other gay character who would emerge at some point as their love interest.

The fact that I get to play a queer Filipino on television and another queer character in 'Crazy Rich Asians' is huge. I never thought I'd have a career being myself. I always thought that being an actor in Hollywood meant that I would have to put that side of me on the back burner.

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.

When I was in high school, there weren't a lot of out gay actors playing gay roles. I didn't see myself represented truthfully in the media.

If I did the structure and had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he's heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it - just to prove that he's gay?

When we've had images that perpetuate the negative stereotype of people of color, we've always had 'The Cosby Show' to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that kinda leaves us not in a great place in terms of having the wide scope of the images of people of color.

Cogsworth, the character I did on 'Beauty and the Beast,' could be a bit flamboyant onscreen, because basically, he is a cartoon. But they didn't want Cogsworth to become Disney's gay character, because it got around a gay man was playing him.

I think it's very important that, you know, gay actors get to play gay characters.

It's so important to create roles and characters and projects that feature black people in a way that's not specifically targeted towards the niche market, which is, like, a black movie is created, and it's produced and pitched so that only black people will watch it.

The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

There's not a lot of gay programming on TV.

There was a criticism of 'Milk' that I found truth in, which was that it was focused on gay white men.

When I started, you couldn't do anything. A gay person trying to write a gay character in 1998 - it was so difficult.

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've never been a person that has had fear of, like, 'Oh, I don't want to be the poster child for all black lesbian women.' I don't know. I want to be someone in the public eye that they can be proud of.

I get that people want more diversity in TV and film, and I stand by that. I stand in solidarity with better diversity in TV shows, especially for Asian actors. I agree with that 100 per cent.

Everyone who passes through 'Drag Race,' and especially the people who are able to have really big careers after the show, has a responsibility to the queer community to do a good job of representing queer people across the board to be kind and loving.

Some of white middle America haven't seen a black gay guy in a music video before.

It's important, as a young person of color, to see yourself reflected in the media.

Shows like 'Empire'... one of the most profound powerful things is that there's a gay male character who is loved. That character is going to save a lot of people's lives. Black families are confronting the idea that a gay black character can be human.