Teyonah Parris Quotes

I think that a lot of actors of color have said that it's a wonderful thing to play a role that doesn't have a race and that is kind of open to any sort of interpretation. I completely understand that, but at the same time, I just want Asian characters that are well-written.

There needs to be more film directors of colour. They bandy about the word 'diversity' a lot, but when I say 'of colour,' I mean Asian, black - I mean people of all colour. We need to have those voices given the opportunity, not told that their films will not be distributed or will not sell well abroad.

When you're doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it's most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we're all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it's important. It's also interesting.

'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.'

It takes time for brown people and people of different ethnicities to get into the Hollywood world, which is predominantly Caucasian and African American.

I get that people want more diversity in TV and film, and I stand by that. I stand in solidarity with better diversity in TV shows, especially for Asian actors. I agree with that 100 per cent.

It's difficult because usually when they cast things, the main characters are Caucasian in absolutely almost every situation.

There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian.

There are many projects I couldn't get off the ground because they didn't have white heroes. It's a problem that everyone who's been working in Hollywood has been facing.

There has been a big debate about it: can a black man play a Nordic character?

You go to Los Angeles or New York or Miami or Chicago, and you see Latinos everywhere; they are involved in every part of American society. That's why they have to start being represented in Hollywood, because an 'Americano' can't walk down the street and not see a Latino.

All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.

Studio heads seem to be getting the message that there is not only an audience out there, but there is a desire for people to see people of colour in central roles and in authoritative roles.

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.'

It's so important to create roles and characters and projects that feature black people in a way that's not specifically targeted towards the niche market, which is, like, a black movie is created, and it's produced and pitched so that only black people will watch it.

The lamest excuse that I get incessantly is, 'Oh, we're not going ethnic with that role,' so I can't go in for it, or I can't get the part, which is really stupid, because, in today's world, people look different.

If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.

I knew there were calls for diversity in children's lit, but you always wonder as a person of color, how diverse is too diverse?

I don't want to be super aggressive, but I think it's an issue that the population of America isn't reflected accurately in a lot of movies. I'm just disappointed that there isn't an Asian leading man or an Asian leading woman. There's an obvious gap that should be filled.

When you cast cross-racially, another dimension is added.

I want to see designers capitalize on a beauty that is not only white. I need them to stop acting like beautiful black and brown women do not exist.

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.

Fashion week is not an episode of 'Girls' or 'Friends,' where I'm OK that there is not a black person in sight because I honestly believe these characters don't come into contact with - therefore don't have - any black friends. No, in the case of Fashion week, it feels wrong.

In Hollywood, I was never restricted to just one Asian character. I've been cast as a Chinese, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Japanese and a Cambodian.