Actresses From New York City

"I don’t like anything that makes fun of Asian culture or makes it look dumb. It’s such a thin line to walk and everyone draws that line someplace different. It’s such a subjective thing."

"Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as far as I was concerned, was the key to the success of the show."

"I was not acting. I couldn't! I thought she was funny, charming, beautiful, intelligent every single second I ever spent with her, onstage and off. Bingo! No acting required."

"Laughter is a basic human need, along with love, and food, and an HBO subscription."

"I grew up here in Washington, D.C., back during the quaint, old-fashioned "Rule of Law" period."

"As a great fan of the work of Mark Twain, I was so sorry when I recently learned he was dead. My thoughts and prayers go out to the whole Twain family. Especially the wonderful Shania."

"Everybody needs laughs, so the fact that I've had the opportunity to make people laugh for a living is one of the many blessings that I have received in my life."

"I see and appreciate beauty in my weird little way. It’s easy to buy presents or make romantic gestures, but the more simple things demonstrate you really know someone – that’s what I find sexy and romantic. Being romantic is knowing what makes the person you love happy."

"I never really liked too much attention, which can be good and bad, if someone gives me a compliment it just goes in one ear and out the other, and if someone says something really horrible it’s the same. I just learned not to value my self-esteem and who I am as a person on the popularity of a film or how famous I am at the time. I guess I had the perspective of how it can be there one time and not another. And life is the most exciting part, really living, you know?"

"I love being engaged, but I don’t really have a desire to get married, I always felt like marriage should be more of a reward... For surviving your relationship... I feel everyone’s got it backwards"

"Somehow, acting brings out parts of your personality that maybe you didn’t know were there, or the character brings out some little part of you that has been dormant for your whole life, you know? And then when you get the chance to play these characters, some-times things come out of you that are quite surprising and that you don’t even know are inside of you. It’s an amazing thing to experience that."

"I love simple things, I’m not really that turned on by the grandiosity of celebrity and fame. I love beautiful things... and I so appreciate all of the amazing experiences I get to have, and the finer things in life. But the things that really make me happy and re-ally touch my heart are just incredibly simple. I think I’ve always been that way my whole life."

"If I take my origin story as a first generation Latina straddling between 'La Isla' [the island, referring to Puerto Rico] and New York, 'Spider-Verse' shows me the connective tissue that makes me proud of my culture and roots in both places."

"I think your origin is important, not only because it defines who you are, but also because it shows what you have in common with others."

"…Everything comes in waves and sometimes I do feel like there’s a lot more coming than there used to be, but the business itself has changed. In some ways the cult of celebrity has taken over rather than looking for really talented actors. And that’s a completely different trend that completely impacts who you watch and what types of show you’re seeing…"

"As an American, I always want to create work that reminds the world that people of colour have been great contributors to American history, culture, and tradition and that our stories exist and matter."

"…What’s different on TV and film is that you get to grow into it even in the scene. Because you do various takes and you start with one idea, and you work on it – but the one thing that you never know is how it’s going to affect that other person’s energy. It’s been very organic for the both of us in terms of how the dynamic between the two characters has developed."

"…My pieces come from people and feelings and life rather than research. During my life, I’m listening and feeling, and I’m also calibrating the emotions in the room and asking people about their lives, and from there I go into creating. I wouldn’t be able to do research and then create a piece. It would be so flat. It would be filled with ideas and not emotion. Mine is more of an emotional based work."

"…New York. Invisible New Yorkers. Folks that aren’t talked about in the theatre as much. Love. Instead of love it’s more like service. Service to one another. Death always seems to follow every show I do. It’s really life and death…"

"I want to represent queerness and mujerness in the conversation. I worry that my poor Spanish may be off-putting to some cohorts. I just talk so damn slow in any language. I also want to represent slow talkers—and mimes."

"I tend to channel my characters and their needs first—that leads to dramatic situations—and then…I start writing and barf out pages. Next, I read what I have and find a glimmer of plot in there. Then I do it all over again with the plot driving the characters. You have to write a lot and throw out a lot and have fun with it."

"If I talk about my body the way the men do, that’s not okay with the audience. I was at a comedy show where there was this cool lesbian couple in the audience, really stylish, and one of them had to leave. She was crying sitting there listening to all the jokes about Subarus and mullet haircuts. I thought: I am going to get back at them. I want a man to look at this show and realize that their junk is no more appealing than women’s junk. I want them to look at junk."

"My audience is a mix of people, very San Francisco progressive, gay straight, Latino, people of color, white folks, and women. What I’ve learned is you can’t get everybody. I don’t want to compromise who I am. I love anyone who buys a ticket to my show."

"The outsiders. I’m interested in the people that don’t necessarily fit and the thing that gives you permission to be uncomfortable. I like dark work because you’re forced to learn about certain things…"

"In theatre, people do that all the time. There’s always going to be somebody who wants their own sense of justice, especially with this. They have their own sense of justice that explains if someone else’s is true. Speak for me, speak to me. I want you to tell me who did what. We don’t know who did what within those individual moments. Who was right? Who was wrong? Whatever that means. It’s not, for lack of a better term, that black and white."

"I think that art helps evaluate some of the psychology of yourself as a child, and to illuminate some things you may never have understood."

"If you are looking for a sense of justice, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m telling many truths. I don’t have to represent."

"I realized it had everything to do with how I grew up and the interaction I had with my father, that he was somewhat abusive…That made me understand that your body retains not just physical damage, but emotional perforations."

"You can't allow fear to take over your life. If you do, you'll look back and you'll have regrets. I learned this a long time ago, because I think "my God, my parents came over from another country". It would be really scary for me to move to China and leave everything behind. But I have to remember that fear is something everyone feels and it's natural. You might feel fear 10 times a day in your life, and you have to try to understand it…"

"Growing up as somebody from another country, really, not what you see on television, I never saw myself in the forefront, ever. We were always in the background."

"[All of the characters] are composites. You’re looking at what could be. There’s theatrical truth to it, which is: maybe this isn’t verbatim, but it’s within the realm of possibility…"

"Everyone has a different format for how they want to reveal what they are thinking, or what they are seeing, to the audience…I just had to let go of the audience and just started thinking about what I wanted to see."

"The challenge from the beginning was just the diversity and ‘We don’t really know what to do with you’ and ‘There’s not going to be a lot of work for you."

"The lack of predictability with television is something that’s constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is…"

"Survivors, I believe you. Because I am you. #BelieveSurivors #StopKavanaugh #timesup ✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽"

"You are not weak. You are brave. One of the bravest I know. Speaking your truth, a person living at the intersection of multiple identities, unapologetically, takes courage. I love you"

"ICE has strayed so far from its mission. It's supposed to be here to keep Americans safe, but what it's turned into is frankly a terrorist organization of its own that is terrorizing people that are coming to this country."

"ICE is a terrorist organization, and it's leader is Donald Trump."

"The world has so much suffering in it already—choosing to be vegetarian is one thing you can do to reduce the suffering on a daily basis."

"I believe we should extend our care and concern to all living creatures with whom we share this planet. ... [Animals] give me a window into a world that is different from our own, but every bit as meaningful. ... I can’t imagine what life would be like without animals. They bring me happiness and a sense of calm and peace."

"I've been an animal lover my whole life and I consider myself environmentalist, and often the two subjects come together."

"If you can spend a little time with these creatures, you can connect them again to animals that you love, which I think helps everybody remember the importance of treating them humanely and with dignity. These are, you know, the lucky animals that have fallen off the backs of trucks and stuff. If you want to help the environment, go vegetarian."

"It's so important, so comforting, to have lampposts in this world who can light the way."

"Uniqueness is what makes you the most beautiful."

"Find something you’re passionate about and you know, do something."

"Nobody should be entirely defined by one thing"

"I go back and forth between [being a vegan and not being a vegan]. I try lots of different things. I really feel that you need to kind of listen to your body and what your body is telling you to eat. So I was a vegan for about two years. … Well, everything with being vegan and vegetarian is a really big commitment. You have to do what you feel is best and what you believe in and what your body is telling you that it needs. I really think everyone should do what’s best for them, and what’s best for me may not be best for someone else. But like I said, you just have to do what makes you feel good."

"I thought, 'This is just too terrifying. I've never seen anything like that before.' I hadn't been allowed to watch horror movies before that. I was so traumatized I literally could not sleep for weeks, and it changed my physical appearance; I lost like 10 pounds. My teachers got so concerned they called my mother, 'Is there something going on – is she being abused at home?' My mother found a picture of Robert Englund the actor, and Robert Englund in the Freddy Krueger make-up, and pasted them up near my bedside table. So, every night when I'd go to sleep, literally for like a year, I'd have to look at it and think, 'It's just a movie, it's just a movie, it's not real.' I remember thinking that I was going to grow up one day and be an actress, and never make a movie that scares little kids."

"Dr. King said he had a dream that WE would get to the promised land.Well, we’re here. We just have to live it. Through hard work and service to our fellow man, we can have it. In America, there is enough to go around."

"God spoke to me and God told me, "Keep your son,” And I did and he saved my life. My son saved my life. Had I not had my son, I would probably be dead right now."