There's part of me that would love to wear a ruffly collar and do a period drama, but that's not going to happen. You don't have Asians in those sorts of things.
Adeel Akhtar
We need more diversity - we need more African-Americans on screen, Latinos, Asians, different religions. We have to be better about reflecting what our world looks like.
Allison Schroeder
People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way - quite suddenly - to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.
Amartya Sen
I wanted to tour the United States because I feel I owe it to the community that I grew up in. When I was growing up, the only people I saw on TV were Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Jet Li. Our representation as Asians wasn't big, but I wanted to be like Lucy Liu and then Maggie Q.
Amber Liu
My main priorities were to fight for Britain. Not a lot of Asians get selected for this country at anything, and it's a great achievement.
Amir Khan
I just feel like, especially after 'Crazy Rich Asians,' gentrification isn't affecting art. I am actually more inspired by art now than ever.
Anthony Ramos
Honestly, I was watching Marvel films and was always crestfallen: Where are the super-Asians? People are looking to be represented by their heroes.
Benedict Wong
You gotta understand, there are two different kinds of Asians - the kind who are good at school, obey their parents, go to college - that kind of stuff. And then you have my family - me, my brother, all of my cousins - we're just wretched people.
Bobby Lee
Parts for Asians are hard enough to get, and if Tee, which sounds kind of generically Asian, helps me get roles, so be it.
Brian Tee
For the most part, the roles Asians can get aren't necessarily well-rounded, and more often than not, they're stereotypes. But that's all we have. And then we see each other all the time at auditions, because we're all going for the same role. I've made a lot of friends that way.
Somewhere in the Commandments of Reviewing must be written, 'Thou shalt not compare Asians to non-Asians.'
Celeste Ng
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.
Coco Lee
There are as many quality African-American actors and actresses as Caucasians, but it seems that they get a lot more opportunities.
Columbus Short
Working on 'Fresh Off the Boat' has been really enlightening to me because it's made me actually think about the roles that Asians and Asian-American women have played in media. Not because I didn't think it was important before, but because before, I was really focused on just paying my rent.
Constance Wu
Specificity is what makes good storytelling, and good storytelling is what makes money, and making money is then what encourages new producers to invest in different stories about Asians.
There were so few Asians on-screen when I grew up, and the ones who were on-screen weren't given complex characters to play.
When I heard that Hollywood was going to make Kevin Kwan's novel 'Crazy Rich Asians' into a movie, I was so ecstatic I nearly cried.
Crystal Hana Kim
As a major feature film with Asian Americans in leading roles, 'Crazy Rich Asians' is important. We hope that this movie will be our 'Black Panther,' announcing to Hollywood that we are here, we belong, and we are ready for more.
I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.
David Henry Hwang
People like to say that East Asians in general, and Japanese in particular, are not very expressive: there's that term 'inscrutable.' But often, Europeans just don't get the Asian codes. Believe me, the message is being expressed OK.
David Mitchell
We pride ourselves on our democratic traditions, but in Canada, women couldn't vote until 1918, Asians until 1948, and First Nations people living on reserves until 1960.
I read in 'Life' magazine that Asians had developed an operation to enlarge eyes, and I yearned to have this done. I wanted to dye my hair brown and to anglicize my name. Self-hate was the most terrible cost of the war years for me.
Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.
I'm so sick of people misunderstanding Asians in America and what we're about.
I was in one of the first sitcoms that had a lot of Asians in it. It was called 'Gung Ho' on ABC.
There's a lot of history here. In terms of Asians in this country, you have a big influx after the Cultural Revolution, a big influx after the Korean War, a big influx after the Vietnam War.
A lot of Asians and Asian-Americans have liver problems. If you basically ask anybody who is Asian, they or one of their relatives will have some sort of a liver issue, and the liver actually falls into the jurisdiction of the gastroenterologist.
When I was growing up, Asians were so few and far between as to be almost invisible. And so the idea of an Asian American movement or an Asian American thrust in this country was unthinkable.
I'm absolutely delighted because I'm part of the process that has made Asians very much part of the mainstream fabric of Britain, whereas, when I first started, we were completely on the margin.
There are very few people who are Asian who have the kind of global reach that I have, not just with Asians but with non-Asians. I've worked hard for what my name represents, my brand, not just in Britain but around the world.
I don't drink at lunchtime because I'm very weak at alcohol like most Asians.
This first-generation narrative keeps happening over and over and over again, whether it was Irish or Jewish or our community, South Asians, Japanese-Americans, Mexican-Americans. We've all gone through this sort of bridge, and it will continue to happen.
You could say mixed-race Eurasians have the exact same struggles as a character like Rachel Chu has had: not feeling at home in supposedly their motherland; not being white enough; not being Asian enough.
You can have Asians being leading men that are sex symbols. You can have leading women powering through.
In 'Crazy Rich Asians,' Singapore will be seen as it should be seen, without CGI, without the altering of the images to be more Chinese - a representation of Singapore as we know it and love it.
There are some sour people out there, but we should be getting together and fighting for something bigger rather than Asians against Asians.
Being able to work on a film like 'Crazy Rich Asians' as your first role is phenomenal.
When it comes to Eurasians, are we not allowed to embrace either one of our cultures we feel more attached to? Or decide within ourselves that I am Asian and I am proud to be Asian?
'Crazy Rich Asians' and 'A Simple Favor' were each a master class in filmmaking, and I had so much fun working with all my costars.
We are surrounded by people with accents because America is a nation of immigrants. Beyond that, the people who made your iPhone and the shirt on your back are probably Asians, and we're really not that disconnected from each other; we have very intimate relationships with the world, whether or not we realize it.
Asian-Americans, we're not a monolithic group. There might be some Asians who are second-generation, third-generation, who may not speak the language that their parents or their grandparents spoke.
Westerners, more than most Asians, are prone to feelings of fear, self-hatred, and unworthiness.
It was good to launch the economy in the '50s. Japan did this; China did this; even South Korea did this. All the East Asians did this - import substitution. I think all countries followed import substitution in the '50s and in the '60s, but I think by the '70s, countries were getting out of that first phase of the strategy.
One stereotype I get a lot as an Asian actress is that you're playing the model minority - that Asians are the best, that they're perfect and positively moral all the time.
As far as stand-up, a lot of Asians and Chinese are not as apt to stand-up, especially the older generation since they don't even know what stand-up is.
My publicist actually told me about the book. She's half-Indian, half-Dutch, and she was like, 'You've got to do this book. It's called 'Crazy Rich Asians.''
I was doing stand-up at the Improv and when the host introduces you, 'OK, the next comedian, you've seen him on 'Silicon Valley.' People always clap. They really watch the show and they are fans of it. And then they said, 'You are also going to see him in 'Crazy Rich Asians,' and I did not expect this, but the applause was even louder.
For once in my life, I wanted to flaunt my Asian side instead of hiding it to fit as somebody else... 'Crazy Rich Asians' made me want to get in touch with my roots, instead of running away from them.
Even though there's a lot of horror from Asia in the American cinematic tradition, I hadn't seen Asians at the center of it.
I feel like there's this need that the Asian-American community has to feel like people. It's something that Asians in Asia do not understand about us.
