Paul Bettany Quotes

I don't think that because I am Hispanic I should therefore do Hispanic work.

I find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this.

I was always typecast as a Latina.

In Hollywood, I was never restricted to just one Asian character. I've been cast as a Chinese, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Japanese and a Cambodian.

I can play a cat lady. I can't put my foot down and refuse to play anything but playing the perfect, well-adjusted woman, because those people aren't as fun or funny.

In Scotland, we're a colony in more ways than one. So when directors come up to work, there's a very particular way they want Scotland to look like and to behave like.

Everyone has seen photographs of Mexicans wearing those big sombreros. When you come to Mexico, the astonishing thing is, nobody wears these hats at all.

I'm surprised and disappointed in American culture.

And lot of Asian audiences and reporters don't like me to act as a bad guy. But I think I want to become an actor, I want to try different way.

We're sometimes treated like the stupid cousin, so I'm always drawn to characters that make you feel good about being Welsh.

I realized that I was African when I came to the United States. Whenever Africa came up in my college classes, everyone turned to me. It didn't matter whether the subject was Namibia or Egypt; I was expected to know, to explain.

I haven't gotten labeled as a Hispanic actor.

I was originally cast to be the brains of the Enterprise. Somehow I became The Chick. There's a little ugly girl inside of me going 'Yay! I'm a sex symbol!'

You couldn't escape the literary atmosphere in our home. I grew up as a Britisher. I played a protagonist of every nationality in stage adaptations of Shakespeare and Brecht. I graduated from Yale. When I moved to the U.S., I realized with some amount of surprise that I was seen as an ethnic actor.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.

How is it that the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue allowed such a destructive and parodied image of itself to become the intellectual coin of the realm overseas?

I often hear things like, 'You don't look Latina enough,' and that mentality is so backwards. The fact is, I am Latina, so how are you going to tell me that I don't look Latina?

I would get a lot of roles for the ethnic friend and then I would go in for that and not be ethnic enough. They wanted an Indian accent. They wanted something more very visually, clearly specific.

Coming off 'House of Cards,' playing someone so straight-laced, I was getting offered a lot of F.B.I. agents.

People think that being Korean is all one thing.

It's weird to try and identify a nationality for a film.

It's a phenomenon that I see with young actors - a lot of American speaking parts going to British actors.

I used to get upset with the word Bollywood, and what it means in the West. The stereotype of us being dancing, singing, puppet showgirls. Indians are nearly one fifth of the world's population; we have one of the most prolific film industries in the world. When people used to ask me about it, or replicate what they think is Bollywood dancing, thinking that they're being funny, I used to get offended. But now I show them the stuff we do.

The increasing tendency towards seeing people in terms of one dominant ‘identity’ (‘this is your duty as an American’, ‘you must commit these acts as a Muslim’, or ‘as a Chinese you should give priority to this national engagement’) is not only an imposition of an external and arbitrary priority, but also the denial of an important liberty of a person who can decide on their respective loyalties to different groups (to all of which he or she belongs).

I found a movie called “Light in the Piazza.” I finally made the movie with Olivia de Havilland and myself, but initially there was no way I could make that movie, so I went to work on becoming that character. They told me they had an Italian [actor], and I said, “That’s a Cuban boy!” His name was Tomas Milan. I thought that’s the craziest thing I’d ever heard: They have a Cuban who’s going to play an Italian, and I can’t play it because I’m an American.