A Quote by Teyonah Parris
When I choose a role, what I'm looking for is the ability is to tell our stories. Me being a black woman, that's just a given. It's going to be a part of any role I do, making sure I tell it truthfully and nuanced and in a way that many people can relate to.
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What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ...Stories tell us who we are. What we’re capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what’s important.
Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.
So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: Tell me! Tell me! The stories choose me.
So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: 'Tell me! Tell me!' The stories choose me.
There are so many talented people in the world - black, white, yellow, whatever - and we want to tell stories, too. But oftentimes, we get the one token minority role.
My grandmother would always tell me that I was hers, that I was Mexican. That was her role. It was not my teacher's role to tell me I was Mexican. It was my teacher's role to tell me I was an American.
I'm not going to be labeled a black filmmaker. I am not here to just tell black stories. I'm here to tell all kinds of stories, musicals and dramas.
We need to humanize women instead of making the idea of a woman be so stigmatized. That's what's interesting to me as a writer and a director - being able to tell stories that represent women as human beings and don't relate specifically to their gender. I want to just allow them to have their journeys.
I don't ask my students to have studied film or any education in general. What I ask them is to come and sit and tell me a story, and the way they choose it and tell it, for me, the best criteria for whether they are right for making films. There's nothing more important than being able to tell your story orally.
I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white. But I want tell stories that everybody can relate to, so I don't care who's opposite me.
I relate to that idea of not necessarily seeking out 'interesting female roles,' but 'this character, this role, who happens to be a woman, is interesting to me, and I relate to it in some way, so I'm just gonna go with my gut and see where it leads me.'
Making music is like being the president: You can't tell people you're going to make health care free to get them behind you, but when you get that role, you don't do it.
All I've ever done since I was 17 is tell stories. You know, I'm a storyteller. And that's what I'm going to keep on doing, especially now, kind of embracing and making sure that we tell immigration.
I like to tell stories and relate to people and get everybody having a good time. I don't ever want to be in a situation people feel the need to tell me their opinion. So I stay away from any kind of material that would cause somebody in the audience to shout me their opinion.
I think Hollywood is so driven by money, the people who are making the decisions are not necessarily reflective of the melting pot, so what stories are you going to want to tell? You're going to want to tell stories about yourself.
I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want. The thing is, I do identify with being black, and if people don't identify me that way that's their issue. I’m happy to challenge people's understanding of what it looks like to be biracial, because guess what? In the next 50 years, people will start looking more and more like me.
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