Deborah Mailman Quotes

The roles for South Asians may have increased by a decent number but there has been a negligible change in the quality of these roles. We still have to fight stereotypes. Fortunately, I've had the priviledge of working with people who look beyond the color of your skin.

I was cast in 'Thor' and I'm cast as a Nordic god. If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good.

'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

I've been very lucky to have played a variety of characters, and they weren't defined by their race.

No matter what happens, we couldn't let people say Asian-American actors can't act.

Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.

Hollywood isn't ready for an Indian leading man.

Of course we've been fighting against stereotypes from Day One at East West. That's the reason we formed: to combat that, and to show we are capable of more than just fulfilling the stereotypes - waiter, laundryman, gardener, martial artist, villain.

Latinas are the fastest growing segment of the minority population, and their perspective deserves to be represented, not denigrated.

I'm fighting the label of 'Black' actress simply because it's very limiting in people's eyes, especially people who are making movies.

Being Asian in this business is something you have to consider, because sometimes people aren't as open. They'll say, I can't see you with a Caucasian person.

I'd like to think that the door is always open for just the best actor for the role, you know? Race or gender shouldn't have anything to do with it, unless the character or story is focused on that for some particular reason.

I have a responsibility to diversity onstage, but one of the things I've heard about our production of 'Boys' is that it's a bunch of white guys. Well, race is a component of this play. You can't just drop people in willy-nilly and say, 'Well, we're going for diversity.'

I want to tell human stories not solely based on race. There are so many great actresses and actors that are out there, and I just want to see them do good work.

I didn't think it was possible for Asians to be actors.

If you're going to make black movies only about black people, that's as bad as white movies only about white people.

I'm black, yeah, but I'm just an actor, so everything I do doesn't have to be color-specific or specific to history. But I got to a point where a lot of people wanted to offer me period pieces, like that's the only thing I could do.

When I started my pathway, black players were often considered to be good wingers, good players, but not captain or management material. It has changed since then, which is pleasing, but we still have so far to go.

Even before I came out, looking at me, I've probably looked a little gay. I had short hair, and, you know, it wasn't a huge surprise to people. But some athletes have this image to uphold and may feel like sponsors won't want them if they're gay.

Usually when you're Asian and you're on set, you're the only Asian there. Either you're the token Asian or you're the Asian sidekick.

My straight friends accept I'm gay but they forget that some people don't. Even now, if I go into a party, people don't usually assume I'm gay, so you have to keep coming out. And if you say you've got a film with a gay subject matter, you can sometimes see people's eyes going, 'Oh! OK!'

Years ago, I couldn't get arrested in commercials because of my look: 'Is he Jewish, Hispanic, or African-American?' I ended up doing voiceover work, which has been great. Honestly, I can't complain.

You just never see people of different ethnicities in period dramas.

If I'm racist, don't think I would have directed shows like 'The Parkers' and 'The Wayans Brothers' or worked 41 episodes with Victoria Rowell on 'Diagnosis: Murder.'

For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire.