Shari Sebbens Quotes

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

I know the only reason that I haven't gotten many good parts is because I am Latin - and they tell it to my face a lot of times.

I read the script, and I knew it was a good part. It was written for a white actor. That's what I'm up against - I have to try to make roles happen for me that aren't written black.

If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn't be very many roles for me to play.

So the only things I was being allowed to audition for were small roles in comedies. It broke my heart. No one would see me for anything else. I knew, in order to open up my career, I had to leave or that's all I would ever be given.

There's still a bit of a problem, in that so many leading English roles are taken by American or French actresses.

If I were to wait only for roles that clarify my racial makeup, I'd be waiting for a very, very long time.

When I first left drama school, I was too posh for the working-class parts and not posh enough for the upper-class roles. You know what England is like: the gradations of accent and how you're judged by them are still there. I discovered that to get a break you have to lie about where you're from.

I've played a lot of bad guys, 'cause that was the only work I could get. People saw my face and went 'oooh'.

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.'

While I feel that I have a great reservoir to draw from as an actor for lots of different roles, it is difficult because it can be an industry where it's people's jobs to thin-slice you really quickly and try to fit you into a niche in the market.

I get offered a lot of black roles, because apparently I don't look Latino enough.

I've been lucky that even when I was younger, just because of my look or whatever, I was afforded the opportunity or called on to try. 'Can you do this Hispanic character?' 'Can you do this Italian character?' 'Can you do this Jewish-American character?' I just had to develop a facility for their accents.

The playing ground is so uneven, and there have been so many straight characters for such a long time, and so many gay actors that have had to hide their sexuality to get the parts they want to play.

For the most part, the roles Asians can get aren't necessarily well-rounded, and more often than not, they're stereotypes. But that's all we have. And then we see each other all the time at auditions, because we're all going for the same role. I've made a lot of friends that way.

I was lucky to get into drama school and become a professional actor. No-one ever mentioned the colour of my skin. It's only when I came out of RADA - the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art - that I suddenly realised people started to refer to me as a black actor.

As an ethnic actor, I still feel I can't be in 'Downton Abbey' or in period dramas.

When you graduate is when you start to find yourself looking at the information in the audition breakdown and it says tall black African - or African-American built such and such. And you start seeing these character descriptions and seeing that, oh, you're only going in for the ones that are described as your look.

The problem with the film industry is that once one starts out as a villain, subsequent offers are those of similar roles.

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.

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 was told 'You should just do commercials and Bollywood' and Bollywood would be said to me like it's a bad thing.

At one point, I bought brown contacts because people told me I wasn't Latin enough to play Latin, and I'm Puerto Rican. I went and bought brown contacts just so I could go in and look more Latino... but that was something that I've dealt with in this business.

It's very hard as an Asian actress to get seen for anything which isn't specifically Asian in England.

I felt like I wasn't considered for minority or Caucasian male lead roles. There aren't really a lot of roles written for me, and I mean me and who I am in real life.