Jim Brown Quotes

I tend to play characters that aren't supposed to black or written black.

I always get offered the pretty, popular girl roles, but I want to do something dark, really challenge myself and get out of my comfort level.

There's this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didn't want to be doing the same thing all the time. Every now and then, you crash and burn, but that's part of it.

An accent like mine and a face like mine, I think a lot of the time it's easy for casting directors to just stick me in as a bad boy, but 'Being Human' took a risk on me - bless 'em - and I'm not that bad boy no more.

I want to put something on the screen that audiences have never seen black actors do before, roles that will widen views of who African-Americans are.

When you are a really iconic character, everyone thinks that's all you can do. It's nice to show people that I'm not a one-trick pony.

I'd like to see more Asian-American roles where the ethnicity of the character can be swapped to another. We can, of course, play the stereotypical ninja, the martial arts master, the accountant, the doctor, but we can be more than that!

I understand that, being born with a certain face, people want to see me in certain roles. But one needs to break that image by doing different kinds of films.

Filmmakers have role for everyone today. There are no stereotypical roles.

I do try and stay away from the stereotype and getting typecast.

Being typecast is the enemy of any actor, so if you can try to do something that flips on the head peoples' ideas of who you are or what you can do, that's my biggest aim.

I was looking to show people I could act. I was looking for something that would take me away from the whole hunk riding off into the sunset thing that people wanted me to play after Brown Sugar.

I'm definitely a character actor. I've tried to limit anything with a uniform because I've done it so much. There's a lot more I can offer. It's just getting people to see something else.

I want to steer away from the stereotypes that Latina women are categorized in. I feel like there are so many more opportunities for us. I like going out for those roles that says 'open ethnicity.'

I try to avoid typecasting by doing different roles.

The girl-next-door image is a sort of joke; for years, I couldn't get any roles other than as somebody dark.

Every actor wants to break out of the box that they put you in and that's where I'm heading, out of the box as fast as I can.

Once you're sort of pigeonholed into something, it's quite difficult to get out of it. I have no aversion to playing a gay character again, but it would definitely have to be the right role.

I have lots of hopes for black actors in general, whether they be on TV or on stage or in movies, and that is that we move beyond the tokenism of what it means to be black in a particular set of circumstances.

Danny Chung in 'Veep' is a really unique, very anti-stereotypical role for an Asian-American actor, and being able to play that has been super fun.

After 'Homeland,' I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I've done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.

One of the things I like about comedy in general is that it affords Asian Americans the opportunity to not be noble.

I'm trying to break the stereotypical role now of the Theo-type character because, in my post-'Cosby' life, as I call it, I don't want to be known as just the kind of guy who can play a Theo Huxtable-type character. I want to be known as being able to do more things, being able to stretch.

If you're the handsome white guy, you tend to get cast as guys who are meant to be convincing in their jobs. What I've been fortunate enough to do, whether it's playing a certified idiot on '30 Rock' or a weirdo in 'Bridesmaids,' is play against that in a lot of ways.

For me as an actor, I oftentimes wish producers would take a chance and cast me against type, and they often don't, so when you get a chance, you do it. At least I do.