A casting director once told a famous Latino actor, “You’re so great, but I don’t think I can call you back because your last name is Rodriguez. But I can call you back for this four-line role of a gang member.“

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"So they didn't even give me a chance to go into the auditions," she said.

She continued, "It really seeps into the psyche of young Asian American kids. I know it did for me. I didn't see anybody that looked like me growing up on TV. I genuinely thought to my core that I would have no chance of being an actor because my dad wasn't white. The more I became aware of my thinking, the more I thought, 'Oh, this is because I look this way or because I feel this way.'"

After getting married, she and her husband took each other's last names, making them Zoe Saldaña-Perego and Marco Perego-Saldaña.

She continued, "All my life, I'd been called 'Aym-ritt.' It didn't make me angry. It made me feel like we're finally revealing truths about being a South Asian born in America and Canada, where people are still learning to pronounce our names. We're outsiders. [Bela] is excited to compare herself to the white ingénue, because she doesn't feel like the white ingénue."

He later added, "I'm gonna go on Ellen, the most American show ever, and make you hit all the syllables."