Constance Wu Quotes
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Public service is about serving all the people, including the ones who are not like you.
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I passionately support Hillary Clinton for president because she has devoted her life to public service and has been willing to learn and change along the way by listening to the people she serves.
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I'm okay with not having a super-secure lifestyle because if you're doing what you like, you don't need stuff to fill any empty holes.
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The one dream I have is to do a musical. I love singing, but most people don't know because I don't sell myself as a musical person. My dream is to play Audrey in 'Little Shop of Horrors' - it would be so interesting to have an Asian Audrey because it's all about achieving the American dream in a sinister, success-driven way.
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In terms of pure acting, my role model has always been Philip Seymour Hoffman; I really always loved what he did. I love what Mark Ruffalo does. When I was younger, I liked Cate Blanchett a lot. These are all actors who are given stories and allowed to carry the whole story.
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My dad got a job as a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. He teaches biology and genetics. My dad has been obsessed with science his whole life. Both my paternal grandparents were illiterate bamboo farmers, so he really worked his way up and then got a Ph.D., full ride and everything, from universities in America.
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It's my privilege to be able to play somebody not myself. I'm an actor who creates characters based in voice, movement, emotional quality, speech.
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When I was a 12-year-old middle-schooler in Richmond, Virginia, my local newspaper published an op-ed that I wrote all by myself.
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Usually, I'll be auditioning for the third lead, and there will be Latina actresses, Indian actresses, African American actresses because it will be like, 'Let's check off this box. We have our lead white girl, and we need an ethnic slot.'
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There were so few Asians on-screen when I grew up, and the ones who were on-screen weren't given complex characters to play.
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I feel like I could carry a movie or a show, and I'll mess up here and there, and I'll learn from those things.
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I do think there are some actors that can get away with trying to be funny, and they're still funny because they're just likeable, and you want to see them. Me, though, when you see me trying to be funny, it's like the worst thing in the world. It's needy, it's cloying, it's manipulative - it's bad.
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Listening to an underserved population is how you begin to understand them and serve them better.
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All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.
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If somebody judges me, then they're not my people, and that's all right.
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I don't aspire to just play things that are like me. Whether the accent is Taiwanese or British or Canadian - that is the very craft in which I was trained. It is my absolute privilege and honor to do that.
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I don't have the best family life. I'm not going to have a sob story and be like, my parents abandoned me, because they didn't. But they also are not that present. When I'm alone, I'm alone. I don't have anybody to call, and so I have to create meaning from myself.
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If the writing is good, then the writing is already funny. All you have to do is make this funny writing true to the very deepest of your heart, and the fact that you are capable of making this true will be hysterical.
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When I was a teenager, I worked at the Gap for a summer folding shirts. That was pretty mindless and soul-sucking.
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At one point, I quit acting for a little bit to study psycholinguistics - somewhat a more practical career. It just didn't feel right.
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You're never going to please everyone, and if you do, there's something wrong.
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I'm not a naturally social-media inclined person. I still prefer phone calls to texts/emails. I... hate texts.
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Being an actor, in and of itself, is just hard. You have to just do it for its own sake.
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The more you know about somebody's back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after a while, cleverness is just really obnoxious!