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Are you using Photoshop? I'm not understanding where you are seeing these grayed out options. If a font has a bold version or italic version, it exists in a dropdown menu next to the font. If the font doesn't have an italic version, it doesn't exist in the list; not a grayed out option....

If italicizing is all you're after, you could always use Edit>Transform>Scew  and drag the top handle of the transform box to the right. You can do this while maintaining the font layer (without rasterizing).

If you want to go bold and it is not an option, then hold CTRL while left clicking the type layer to load a selection of the text and then use Select>Modify>Expand  and choose the appropriate amount of pixels to get it as bold as you'd like. Create a new layer and use the Edit>Fill  option to fill the selection with your desired color. However, this will give a raster result that cannot be edited as text or enlarged without pixelating.