Don Cheadle Quotes

After Halle Berry does her films and Queen Latifah does her films, it's left to all the black, Latino and Asian actresses to fight over a couple of roles. I opted for some TV. There's just not a ton of work in film.

I know some black actresses who have to wait every 19 films for a role. I can be cast in practically every one as a young white male.

I grew up figure skating, and in figure skating there is only a handful of black people at the time figure skating with me.

When I started, there were no Indians on television or films, except for Sir Ben Kingsley. I was an actor in high school, college, and I played leads. And when I graduated, I knew that I couldn't go to Hollywood and audition for shows or films. I could try, but where was the evidence that it was going to happen?

I get it - there are very few black female actresses who have been given chances.

There's all kinds of depictions of black men. You have the Denzel Washingtons and the Will Smiths; that's wonderful, but that doesn't represent everyone. There's a Russell Crowe... well, you know, there's a black Russell Crowe.

When I was a little girl, there was no Variety Latino. When I was a little girl, there was no nothing. There were very few roles for people like myself.

Film was something I didn't really think about when I was young, because if you looked like me, you weren't a film star.

The thing that disturbs me the most, being in England, is that on the screen we don't see very many of us - there aren't very many black girls. They don't make the roles for us, or they don't see us in those roles.

I think #OscarsSoWhite is about there not truly being enough people of color represented.

There are fewer representations of black figures in the historical record.

As black women, we're miles behind our white counterparts in being offered the space to create and craft female characters in major blockbuster films.

I feel like the world is dominated by such a small group of human beings. There are so many different kinds of people that aren't represented, that don't have characters who look like them. And that's one of the reasons why I intend on being a director, because I want to actually tell some of these stories. I also think that we place such intense emphasis on award shows when they're not necessarily the best reflection of how good the work is. We need to realize that art and creation are so much bigger than an award or any measure of accomplishment.

When I started out in the '90s, there were not many people of color writing, directing and producing - hence, the roles for people of color were few and far between. There's still few roles in England [where she's from].

I always say it's hard to cast an African-American film sometimes because those kinds of actors just aren't out there.

We heroines don't get good roles.

We need to encourage the presence of more Asian writers and executive producers so they can fight for normalizing the casting of Asians in traditional American roles.

I didn't grow up with a lot of role models necessarily when I started out - there weren't many people who looked like me on TV. Not in England.

I've been working almost 20 years, and I think I've worked with maybe one black director of photography in that time. Maybe two women directors or DPs. Maybe. And I've done a lot of TV. That's a lot of people I've worked with.

It's people who look like me, just seeing representation of everyone. I didn't get that when I was young. I only saw one black girl that was on a Disney show, that was known for being the sassy, coocoo, that type of girl.

I don't think people realize what it's like for people of color to audition for film and TV.

There are not a lot of black men in the pop business.

'Crazy Rich Asians' has been compared to 'Black Panther,' but I feel like that's a false equivalency. The idea that there's only this film for Asians and that film for African Americans - it's so binary. I don't think it's like that at all. There should be and will be many films and many stories. Hopefully this just opens the floodgates.

My school is about 25 percent black, but the way we're covered doesn't reflect that.

I feel bad for my little cousins who don't see themselves being represented, or the little girls in my community who won't have a chance to see a Disney princess... who resembles them.