Tony Shalhoub Quotes

Most of the time, actors respond to the thing that's so far from who they are. We all want to play the serial killer and the ex-con.

I can't say I have enough experience with Hollywood to feel that I've encountered racism there. I can tell you that I did about five fruitless years of auditioning for voiceovers where I did variations on tacos and Latin accents, and my first screen role was as a bellhop on 'The Sopranos.'

As an actor, you can play different age ranges and different ethnicities.

I don't aspire to just play things that are like me. Whether the accent is Taiwanese or British or Canadian - that is the very craft in which I was trained. It is my absolute privilege and honor to do that.

I wanted to be cast because I'm an actor and not because of how I look or where I'm from. I'm brown. I want to be able to play a Spanish girl some day or a Mexican girl and learn the language. That's what actors do: we act.

I can do so many accents that I'll never be able to use. There aren't casting calls for a black guy to play a Scottish highlander. I can hope. I've got my brogue ready. I just need the opportunity!

I try to explain to people that you get the roles that are right when they're right. If you have a nerd character but you're kind of a cool guy, you're probably not going to get the nerd part. The nerd is going to get the nerd part. You know, someone like me.

I was modeling with an agency in New York and a manager with the agency introduced himself to me one day and he said he had auditions for someone my age. He asked if I would be interested in doing some.

I used to play a lot of foreign women in my youth because I was prettier then. I would go for interviews, and directors would look at these sultry, exotic looks, hear this clipped accent and think the two don't go together. So they would give me a foreign accent.

Once you get into a part, and someone sees you, you get asked to do it again.

Even at drama school if there was a part of some eastern European thug it would be me.

I don't exactly set out to only play creepy characters, it's just that a lot of those roles come my way.

Yes, I'm blonde. When I started as an actor, because of the accent and my body and my personality, it was not what the stereotype of the Latina woman in Hollywood is, so they didn't know where to put me. The blond hair wasn't matching. The moment I put my hair dark, it was better for my work.

I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.

I want to show another side of Middle Easterners. My hope is that I would be able to play a variety of parts, and not always be the guy with the accent.

I do all kinds of roles - nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho - and occasionally someone kind of normal. It's weird, when I lived in Austin I was always cast as pretty normal people. But when I moved to Los Angeles I was immediately branded a psycho.

In the States, you have a little bit of freedom to audition for different kinds of roles.

As an English actress constantly playing Americans, you already had to step way out of your box in that way.

If I were to limit myself to the opportunities that were presented playing only Chinese-American parts, I would be virtually without a career.

Danny DeVito later told me that he knew he wanted me for 'Matilda' the second I walked in the door. I'm not sure if this is true, or if he was just being nice, but I was thrilled when I got it.

If you're going to be born ugly and be an actor - the least they can do is let you play Lincoln.

I have played Polynesian. I have played an Arabian girl. I played an East Indian girl. And what was so confusing about that, which I mention in my book, is that I assumed I had to have an accent. Nobody said anything, so I made up what I call the universal ethnic accent, and they all sounded alike. It didn't matter who I was playing.

I'm always going to be working on my English, and I'm always going to work on my English so that I can do different characters from different nationalities.

I remember I was up for the role of Jim in 'Huck Finn,' and because I went to Harvard and Yale, they didn't think I would be able to play a slave. I said, 'Oh, please.' I had to go in there and prove to them that I wasn't too intelligent to play a slave.

I read for 'Reservoir Dogs,' and it got down to me and Buscemi, and Quentin couldn't make up his mind. I really wanted that part, but Buscemi is great in that. I also got really close on 'Gladiator,' but Ridley Scott decided on Russell Crowe, who's perfect in it.