Growing up, I remember watching TV, and I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me, especially someone who passed as a glamorous model on a mainstream TV show.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was in high school in America, I didn't see anyone who looked like me - hardly ever. I just thought that was normal because you don't know any better. So I used to idolize so many other people, like Sarah Michelle Gellar on 'Buffy.'
I didn't see a lot of women who looked like me on TV when I was growing up.
There aren't as many roles for people who look like me, and it was always complicated when it came to casting my parents. But now I couldn't be more grateful that I have a different look.
Where I come from, out in the suburbs, I didn't know anyone who was a professional actor. And girls that looked like me? No girls like that were on TV.
Did you ever notice that nobody you see on television looks like anyone you know?
I started working in television quite young, actually, and I definitely felt very insecure about what I looked like.
Before I got into TV, I wasn't fashionable at all.
I was raised in Kenya, and I always wanted to be an actor from when I was really, really little, but the first time I thought it was something that I could make a career of was when I watched 'The Color Purple.' I think I was nine, maybe, and I saw people that looked like me - Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah.
It's funny, I lived my first 38 years of my life with maybe one or two people ever saying that I looked like Greg Kinnear. As soon as I get into the entertainment industry, now it's 100 percent of people.
I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.
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