A Quote by David Henry Hwang
With theatre, we all agree to suspend our disbelief about so many things, but not about race. It's totally OK to have one actor playing five roles - people are willing to believe that. But they won't believe it if there's a black or an Asian kid who has white parents. What does that say about us?
Related Quotes
When it comes to acting, people talk about the suspension of disbelief that you ask of the audience. Before that starts, you have to, as an actor, suspend your own disbelief.
When you have a movie about people landing from planet Neptune, you suspend disbelief. I totally get it. But I like doing things that happen in real life.
I'm a big believer in you make your argument to everybody, and you do it in a way that is real and very candid. Even if people don't agree with you, they appreciate that you're telling them what you believe and they know that you care about them. That's I think a very important part of it that sometimes gets missed, is that people will be OK with you saying something they're not totally on-board with as long as they know that you believe it because you want to help them. That means you've got to care about everybody.
Most of us encounter a great deal more Mystery than we are willing to experience. Sometimes knowing life requires us to suspend disbelief, to recognize that all our hard-won knowledge may only be provisional and the world may be quite different than we believe it to be. This can be very stressful, even frightening. But if we are not willing to wonder, we may have to hang up the phone on life.
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.
We believe we are hurt when we don't receive love. But that is not what hurts us. Our pain comes when we do not give love. We were born to love. You might say that we are divinely created love machines. We function most powerfully when we are giving love. The world has led us to believe that our wellbeing is dependent on other people loving us. But this is kind of upside down thinking that has caused so many of our problems. The truth is our well being is dependent on our giving love. It is not about what comes back; it is about what goes out!
I talk about race a lot. It's been my work ever since I came out of acting school. But it's true that in a way talking about race is a taboo. Because so many of our debates about race have to do not with race but with what we are willing to see, what we will not see and what we don't want to see.
Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.
My definition of good is that you understand that this is a question of power. That you be willing to give up some power. That you be willing to give up some resources. That you be willing to pay Black people reparations for our years and years of service in this country. That you be willing to go home and tell your white mother and father about white racism and how it affects and kills Black people in our communities. That's my definition of good white people, and I haven't met any like that.
Obviously there are many, many ways of being an outsider, but having immigrant parents is one of them. For one thing, it makes you a translator: there are all kinds of things that American parents know about life in America ,and about being a kid in America, that non-American parents don't know, and in many cases it falls on the kid to tell them, and also to field questions from Americans about their parents' native country.
Find out who you are and figure out what you believe in. Even if it's different from what your neighbors believe in and different from what your parents believe in. Stay true to yourself. Have your own opinion. Don't worry about what people say about you or think about you. Let the naysayers nay. They will eventually grow tired of naying.
There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.
I totally believe parents should talk to their kids about drugs. I totally believe that educating them in every way is really important. But on the other hand, I've learned it's not as simple as that.
I never thought about being the first black actor to win, even though everybody else talked about that. If I stop to think as a black actor, people will see me differently. If I play as a black actor, people will only see that. I think my key was to perform as an actor, not as a black actor. And after winning the Cesar, I was an actor with a Cesar. there are many more adjectives to describe who I am. I'm not only black.
When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.
I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or who you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try.
Related Authors
Abi Morgan Quotes
Welsh
Playwright
Arthur Miller Quotes
American
Playwright
August Wilson Quotes
American
Playwright
Eve Ensler Quotes
American
Playwright
George Bernard Shaw Quotes
Irish
Playwright
George C. Wolfe Quotes
American
Playwright
Jeff Lindsay Quotes
American
Playwright
Lynn Nottage Quotes
American
Playwright
Moliere Quotes
French
Playwright
Noel Coward Quotes
English
Playwright
Plautus Quotes
Roman
Playwright
Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes
Irish
Playwright
Robert Greene Quotes
English
Playwright
Sam Shepard Quotes
American
Playwright
Tony Kushner Quotes
American
Playwright
William Shakespeare Quotes
English
Playwright