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When I first started, as long as you were a bit brown, you could play any kind of ethnic anything. Now it's much more localised and specific. I feel like a wise old woman looking back on the evolution of how much more sophisticated audiences are.

I enjoy having the ability to play a variety of ethnicities. Being ethnically ambiguous allows me to explore many roles, and I enjoy being free to be whoever I want to be.

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

I've played American, Italian, Greek, French. I've been really lucky that way.

As an ambiguously non-white actor, I've been able to play light-skinned African American guys, Latinos, and I don't think that I've ever had to play some kind of ethnic stereotype or something that was typed specifically for a person of color.

I don't understand labels. I don't need anybody to tell me I'm Latina or black or anything else. I've played characters that were written for Caucasian females, I just want to be given the same consideration as everybody else, and so far that has been happening.

In 'Gran Torino,' I play a guy who's racially offensive. But he learned. It shows that you're never too old to learn and embrace people that you don't understand to begin with. It seems like nobody else got that message, I guess.

I'm Italian, but some people think I'm Jewish because I work the Yiddish. I also work the Italian, by the way.