Jessica Henwick Quotes

I think I am against stereotype. Generally, Asian guys are more quiet - they study and have a good work ethic. Generally, I have none of those things.

Living in the West, you see how there's only two versions of how Asian men are supposed to be. Either they're very nice, yuppie husbands with children in ads, or they're IT geeks.

Every time I do something, I think, 'Am I portraying Asian people in the way I want to be portrayed?'

I tried my hardest to be the opposite of a stereotypical Asian student.

There were definitely auditions and even bookings and jobs where I played your typical Asian model minority: an IT tech guy or something of that nature. It's tough sometimes, especially when you're starting out, because they make these roles sound as if they won't be a typical nerd.

I'm not the standard Asian girl.

I'm half Asian, so people immediately go, "Oh, you do kung fu," like that's what we do. We wake up, we do kung fu, we brush our teeth. It's just assumed that you're not working your ass off to make this believable and make this something great, and we absolutely are.

I joke around all the time, 'I'm Asian; I'm really good at math.'

I had to tell people I was not born with a scarf because I came out Iran. People think you came out of your mother with a scarf; they can't imagine that the scarf is not stuck to your head.

Being Asian where you're supposed to be more quiet and softer and I was always getting reprimanded for laughing to loud or speaking to loudly.

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

Not only do I not want to be stereotyped as this Asian girl who fights - gee, what a wonder - but also I have more to offer than that.

You gotta understand, there are two different kinds of Asians - the kind who are good at school, obey their parents, go to college - that kind of stuff. And then you have my family - me, my brother, all of my cousins - we're just wretched people.

And people are always saying he deceptively quick, deceptively athletic, and I don't know if that's just because I'm Asian or what it is, but obviously there's going to be stereotypes that you have to fight.

You know, I'm an African-American quarterback. That may scare a lot of people because they - they haven't seen nothing that they can compare me to.

I do have a Mexican accent, but that doesn't mean that I'm a Latin vamp.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

My only goal as a comedian was to stomp the life out of the model-minority myth.

I've never been one to bow down to people who try to question my identity because I don't fit their mould of what an Aboriginal Australian is supposed to be or look like.

I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.

I've often gone to start a film only to find the producers surprised to discover that I'm American.

'English Rose' - what does that actually mean? That I am pale? That I am English, maybe? They are going to say that about any actress from this country!

I actually spoke to one of the heads of a studio, and he said I confuse middle America. Basically, when they see a black person, they see athlete, they see rapper, or they see criminal or something like that. And then when they hear a British accent, they hear posh, so they hear lawyer or doctor.

My wife and I were worried, when we had our firstborn, about how he was going to think of himself in a mostly white neighborhood. Particularly Asian men, I feel, we suffer more than Asian women, because we're told we're not worth anything in general.

Unlike Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, Jackie Robinson never tried to convert himself into an acceptable black man.