Courtney A. Kemp Quotes

It's funny, because I've never thought of myself as a Hispanic actor, like in 'American Gangster,' I'm playing an Italian. I've always been fortunate enough to have been allowed to play all these diverse roles.

I'm very happy to have the heritage that I do, but I'm not wanting to be 'the Latino actor.' I just want to be 'an actor.'

Yes, I am a Mexican, and I have a past and a culture. But what matters is the film itself, not where it was financed or cast.

The large ensemble cast and the fact that it was being shot in New York, combined with a lot of strong positive images as far as African Americans are concerned, really turned me on to The Best Man.

I think it was hard for people to cast me as an ethnic, as an Asian American woman.

I feel like elements of race and identity and ethnicity are sort of missing in all of literature, not just in women's literature.

I'm proud of my roots. There are not many Asians in the music industry so it's important for me to tell people where I'm from.

Jewish, black, Filipino, whatever the specificity is, it's specificity that makes a good story. And I think people are tired of seeing the same old shtick on network television. It's just a group of white people hanging out talking about their jobs. Who cares? We've seen that.

I wouldn't mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian, or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don't see any reason to change that.

When I started acting... the community was largely Chinese-American or Japanese-American, so even then I felt like a minority in the minority.

When I found out that I'm playing Nagini, I thought it was meaningful because it's an important character in the 'Harry Potter' series. 'Harry Potter' is a franchise film with many Caucasian actors, so I thought many Korean viewers would be happy.

Something I love about 'Teen Wolf' is that my character is written in as just a normal girl. She could have been any ethnicity; she doesn't have to be Asian.

There were no small brown kids as the centre of the children's fiction I grew up with.

It's okay, it's cool to be Indian and there are cool people that are Indian and doing really well. It's okay to be brown and cool.

What I always emphasize is that I am a representative who happens to be Somali.

Fantasy stories have almost always been very white and European-focused, and we wanted to tell a story that would feel both more modern and more global. We wanted to attract a diverse audience.

If a filmmaker is making a movie about a nice Midwestern family or a story that needs a very white character or a black or a Chinese, then I don't expect to go up for it. But I know, especially in places like New York, there's no excuse not to see various colors.

Being Latino in this market, in the past 20 years, I hadn't gone out for the white dude next door, but Netflix had that vision. Netflix is changing all of that, not only in the production aspect, but they're trying to include everybody.

I was always a wrestling fan, and being an Arab kid who grew up in Canada, there was no representation for people like me.

I'm not interested in making 'black' movies. I'm interested in making movies that reflect reality as I perceive it.

Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.

I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.

I always say that when I first started, my videos were very veered towards Indian people.

This country isn't a melting pot. Think of this country as a stir fry. That's what this country should be. A place where people are appreciated for who they are.

Well, I think it's real important that people understand, first and foremost, those of us that have lived in Arizona or in southern California, we have a very diverse population. The Hispanic population has been part of all of our lives since we've been born here or since we've grown up here.