Asia Kate Dillon

“If you don't meet luck halfway with really hard work, luck won't get you all the way there.”

“We have table reads for every episode of 'Billions.' The core cast is smaller than the core cast on 'Orange Is the New Black,' so in that sense, it has more of a theater vibe.”

“I moved to New York at 17 to go to school. At 24, I moved back to Ithaca, then moved back to New York at 28.”

“When you are not working in TV and primarily doing film, you're working with one director for a long period of time, so getting to work with 12 different directors in the span of six months is incredible.”

“My mother has always rooted for the underdog, so to speak. She has always been in support of uplifting historically marginalized and historically disenfranchised people.”

“'Laramie' is a way in to replacing any hate in your heart with understanding, compassion, and acceptance.”

“I see reflections of what I love about myself in the love and care I receive from my friends, family, and co-workers who, in turn, allow me to love and care about them.”

“'Actor' and 'actress' don't have to be gendered or sexed.”

“I've always been comfortable being the first person at a party, metaphorically speaking - being the first person on the dance floor, saying, 'This is where it's happening, people, and if you don't think so, that's cool, but I think you're missing out.' That's my general philosophy, and it's served me pretty well.”

“Given the choice between 'actor' and 'actress,' 'actor' is a non-gendered word that I use.”

“Because I was assigned female at birth and I am light-skinned, white, I think people hear my message more than they hear it from someone who was assigned male at birth and is a person of colour.”

“I'm really interested in going back in to the history of non-binary people and seeing how many people in history were non-binary but that didn't know it themselves or because we didn't have the language, couldn't talk about it. I know how that felt being a young person not having that language.”

“When you see white, cisgendered, heterosexual men having conversations about gender identity where they go, 'Oh, those are your pronouns? OK, great. Let's get back to work,' it allows other people to say, 'Maybe if they can do it, I can do it.'”

“I first started removing the 'she,' 'her,' and 'hers' pronouns from my online material. I was just using my name in place of a pronoun, and that felt really good. Then I read the script for 'Billions' and did a little more research into non-binary, and it just really clicked for me.”

“Once people are made aware of things that they were previously ignorant of, I think people are a lot more willing to really try.”

“The work that I engage with, whether it's self-generated or collaborative, is uplifting and supporting historically marginalized and disenfranchised people, because when I uplift up those groups, I'm uplifting myself and supporting myself - it works out in that way.”

“I'm always interested in, I would say, not only sharing my wisdom, but acquiring other people's wisdom as well.”

“I grew up poor, financially lower class. Worked in restaurants for 17 years while going to acting school and trying to become a working actor. Because I know what it's like to not have money, I turn down roles if I don't want to play them.”

“I spent so many years not understanding my own gender identity, not having the language to talk about it, and not feeling safe in many environments to talk about it.”

“It's interesting that people think that pants are masculine. Pants are pants.”