A Quote by Chyler Leigh

I can change my appearance by doing simple things. People ask, 'What's your ethnicity? Are you part Asian? I can't figure you out.' That gives me range with the roles I play. — © Chyler Leigh
I can change my appearance by doing simple things. People ask, 'What's your ethnicity? Are you part Asian? I can't figure you out.' That gives me range with the roles I play.
As a community, we're fighting for Asians to play Asian roles. And then there's the other battle, which is Asian Americans playing roles that aren't written for Asians, and I think that's something that completely should happen; Why can't an Asian American male just play a leading cop figure... or the Matt Damon roles?
Because I sidestepped all the stereotypical roles, in a way I've made a career out of not being Asian - a lot of my roles weren't written as Asian - so there's an impulse in me that wants to take a U-turn and play a very grounded, real Asian character, maybe an immigrant.
Last week I was in London at an awards show, then I flew home and was in an RV park with my wife and kids in our motorhome, this week I'm in NY doing a charity event, and tomorrow I'll be coaching my daughters soccer practice. I guess the range of roles I play on film stem from the range of roles I play in real life.
You can do things in every part of the world. You can do things in every discipline. You can do large things, you can do small things. But it takes a while to figure out what you actually want to do. And it changes. As you change your interests and desires in philanthropy change, I think you have to be open to that change.
In other ways, you constantly have to change people's opinion of you as one thing, especially if you want to play different roles. You have to shatter that image sometimes. I've had to do it before with stage roles, to get roles. I'm drawn to kind of darker, misfit things. I would like to, especially in film, play against type and do some heavier stuff. I'm intrigued by projects that deal with problematic people and things.
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 take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them.
The more visibility, the more opportunities for Asian-American actors to play great roles. It goes to the studios opening up roles they might not have considered Asian actors for. The talent is there. I don't think there needs to be one superstar, but having more roles open up, that's the way changes happen.
There aren't as many roles, and I think there's a lack of openness in casting an Asian character in a leading role or unless they're a stereotype. It's been hard. I've been able to play some non-stereotypical roles, which is great, but I have a lot of Asian actor friends who are struggling.
As soon as you start looking into roles which are specifically Asian, Black, or Latina, you start looking at stereotypes. That's the issue minority actors face - it's not that we don't want to play our ethnicities; it's that, often, the role that's written for our ethnicity is a stereotype.
My advice for climbers or photographers is to really tune into your own passions and not just what other people are doing or aren't doing. Figure out what works for you, what turns you on, what gives you the greatest amount of energy and feeling of satisfaction.
People always ask me, 'Why so many historical dramas?' Because those are the best roles I get to play, and I get to play heroes in those roles.
The only way to change American society, and indeed I think this is true of other societies as well, is for people to discover the power latent in the cooperative roles that they play in a range of institutions.
I believe that the only way to change American society, and indeed I think this is true of other societies as well, is for people to discover the power latent in the cooperative roles that they play in a range of institutions.
One of the things everybody seems to want to ask writers is, "Where do you get your ideas?" When people ask me this, my usual response is, "Ideas are the easy part. The hard part is writing them down."
Being an older person now, I'm finding that people are calling me to play various things. Variations on the theme of mother, caretaker, and in some cases, doctors, heads of organizations and things like that. For some people, I'm finally old enough to play those roles. We see men playing them when they're a little bit younger, and also in roles that call for some form of conflict and violence, either generating it or trying to curtail it. Women don't seem to be a big part of those common and often used movie themes.
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