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It's difficult because usually when they cast things, the main characters are Caucasian in absolutely almost every situation.

In some cases, the casting directors have casted blindly and have not looked into my ethnic background.

I tend to approach characters not based on ethnicity but on some unique individual qualities, and I've set my whole life that way. I don't want any sort of limitations imposed on my work. If you truly want to be a creative person, you can't limit yourself.

I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.

In a lot of films, they're showing more complete, developed characters of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The larger concern is to be able to tastefully explore the stereotypes, and still move past them to see the core of people.

I've been very lucky to have played a variety of characters, and they weren't defined by their race.

We need to encourage the presence of more Asian writers and executive producers so they can fight for normalizing the casting of Asians in traditional American roles.

It's funny - when I started acting, I didn't know I was going to be talking about Asian-American issues so much. You know what, though? It just comes with the territory, being ethnic.

As an actor, you read so many scripts and parts written for Asian-specific characters, and you see a lot of stereotypes and a lot of one-note characters, especially in comedy.