You ask people what their ethnicity is, and a lot of Scots-Irish people either don't know or if they know it they just don't acknowledge it. It's not something they really identify with. They're just plain old Americans, plain vanilla. I don't think they are a self-conscious voting bloc.
It's hard as a young person of a different ethnicity or background to look at the TV and not see anyone who looks like you. Representation is very important.
I'm just trying to play against ethnicity. I got to play a guy from Louisiana in 'The Pacific' named Merriell Shelton, and now I'm playing Elliot Alderman.
Citizenship and ethnicity can become, in certain contexts, restrictive, and perhaps that's one reason I was interested in people who feel compelled to mask their origins and thereby circumvent the restrictions.
As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can't take off.
I hope to see more programming, more shows, more actors of mixed ethnicity, more young kids of mixed ethnicity choosing to be in the entertainment industry.
As a young writer, I questioned the idea that I had to write fiction in a world where I could write my own ethnicity only and nothing else. 'Fach' to me was a little like that. As a biracial person, that's an inherently unstable identity.
