Quotes About Roles

#1. I know that some of the characters I played were trash. But then, I chose to take up those roles, as I enjoyed doing them.

Anupam Kher

#2. The telephone operator has one of the biggest roles in creating your organization's image ... indeed, many people may come into contact with no one except your operator.

Guy Kawasaki

#3. It doesn't come easily to me, comedy. It's definitely not my strong suit. I'm probably more suited for drama and dramatic roles, but I certainly would love to be in quirky and fun movies.

Ari Millen

#4. I've never tried to reach a certain demographic of an audience or try to say: OK, now I'm going to do this type of film to transition myself into more adult roles. Or a romantic hero. Or whatever it may be.

Leonardo DiCaprio

#5. I don't pick my roles based on what clothes I have to wear. I pick roles because of the character I have to portray, and the public have enjoyed seeing me in those roles.

Sonakshi Sinha

#6. There just aren't that many Jesus roles around.

Jeffrey Hunter

#7. Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood.

Jacquelyn Mitchard

#8. I like playing the contrasting roles. It what inspires me to act. If I look back on my career I am happy that I have gotten to play a wide variety of different roles, from Mike Dexter, to Van Ray in Fast Lane, to Dr. Cullen to Coop.

Peter Facinelli

#9. I do so many roles, I can't be typecast.

Tommy Davidson

#10. I've changed my ways - from what roles I was picking till now. I don't do straight "faith" movies. It's one thing I always tell people. I'm not a preacher, I'm a sinner. I'm still learning and falling in a journey that God has me on and doing the best I can.

Drew Waters

#11. I was doing those roles on ABC Family late in the year, and at the same time, I was auditioning for 'Galavant.' But 'Galavant' was quite a wide casting call. I wasn't recommended or anything. It just kind of happened.

Mallory Jansen

#12. Every actress has to face the facts there are younger, more beautiful girls right behind you. Once you've gone beyond the vanity of the business, you'll take on the tough roles.

Jean Simmons

#13. As so often happens in marriage, roles that had begun almost playfully, to give line and shape to our lives, had hardened like suits of armor and taken us prisoner.

Molly Haskell

#14. In a very real sense, there are only two roles in organisations: customers and suppliers. Everybody functions simultaneously in both roles, whether inside or outside the organisation the essence of good business, therefore, is the quality of the relationship between customer and supplier.

Stephen Covey

#15. One of the best ways to change is to act as if you are the person you want to become. When you behave as if you are a different person, you change on a very basic level - even your physiology changes. When actors and actresses perform, their body chemistry is altered by the roles they play.

Bernie Siegel

#16. Too many young actors are strutting about and doing films without having developed some of the depth you need to bring off certain kinds of roles. I think that's the problem with the system, where a lot of younger actors who haven't had a chance to develop suddenly become stars.

Christopher Walken

#17. I'm interested in the female dom/male sub dynamic, and how superficially it can seem like a total reverse of gender roles and maybe even subversive or something.

Marie Calloway

#18. I guess the characters I play may be at the more destructive edge of the spectrum, more damaged or whatever, but I find a lot of female roles uninteresting.

Lili Taylor

#19. It's hard to win awards if there are no roles.

Darnell M. Hunt

#20. I like uncertainty in roles, and I like uncertainty in art, really.

Martin Freeman

#21. I never get the tall, blonde, glamorous roles because I'm not tall, blonde and glamorous. I'm more the wee, disturbing characters because of the way I look or sound.

Shirley Henderson

#22. It's funny: a lot of roles I do read for mention physical presence - like, 'built like a quarterback' - and for me, it's pretty boring because I don't want that to be the most important thing. I'm not trying to be Dwayne Johnson.

Jai Courtney

#23. Basically, I would like to be considered for roles that are well-written. I think that part of the problem that we've had as actors is that they insist on looking at us as Latino actors and not as actors, period.

Ruben Blades

#24. I always want to try new things, and 'Mean Machine' has given me that chance. I have got plans to carry on acting and would love to play all sorts of roles - you'll see that there's more strings to my bow!

Vinnie Jones

#25. In Hollywood, you're always playing roles ... It's like going through the motions. But in real life, it's like, you gotta take care of business. It's not just the movies.

Mickey Rourke

#26. I am lucky that the Western world chooses me to play roles in their movies an television, whatever language it may be.

Irrfan Khan

#27. But at a certain point, and I don't really know ... people have asked me this. I don't know exactly what it was that pushed me towards directing, but I think it was a naive notion that if I directed I would be able to play all the roles. A kind of greed.

Peter Bogdanovich

#28. I'm vain enough to want do a movie again, but right now more roles are the last thing on my list.

Gwen Stefani

#29. I do not think direct experience is always necessary to act, but I believe that sometimes you have to have had the real experience to act certain roles. One of those was losing your family member. I was not being able to imagine how sad that could be.

Go Ah-sung

#30. I've been getting diverse roles.

John Boyega

#31. I think you're just always trying to find really great, interesting female roles. That's the thing for me. You do have to think about what you're signing up for.

Georgina Haig

#32. I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.

Charles Dance

#33. Theater actors like to change character roles. They don't like to always do the same thing.

Marcello Mastroianni

#34. I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms.

Joshua Bell

#35. I've made a career of taking roles that other actresses didn't want.

Jennifer Coolidge

#36. You couldn't even write me a paper about the roles you would dream of playing in modern musical theatre.

Elaine Paige

#37. Race and gender definitely came up, occasionally, in my life at work. But the bigger challenge that I had was age. I took roles earlier in my career than people expected, and so a lot of what I got was, 'Do you actually know enough to do this?'

Ursula Burns

#38. I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I Am,' or divine spark within the soul.

Sue Monk Kidd

#39. It's quite hard to find a ballsy or complex character. So the roles I've taken are those. Lot's of people put me in the dark category.

Eva Green

#40. I broke into acting doing Latino roles. I played a Latino casanova in 'The Winner' and a Latino character on 'Hannah Montana.'

Michael Steger

#41. I've certainly played those leading man or male juvenile roles, where you're not supposed to make people laugh.

Andrew Rannells

#42. Perhaps we could push beyond these legalistic gender roles if we spent less time worrying about "acting like men" and "acting like women," and more time acting like Jesus.

Rachel Held Evans

#43. I'm always looking for a chance to do something different. I don't necessarily want to repeat myself, at any time, and I don't want to just do the same guy, over and over and over again. I want to be able to do different things and to evolve and constantly try to find those roles.

Colin Hanks

#44. I am looking for movies that are actually about something and that are questioning something. Movies that are provocative in some way and I am also looking for roles that I think will force me to grow or learn something about myself or the world in order to play them well.

Maggie Gyllenhaal

#45. There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Cuba Gooding Jr.

#46. Preparation is definitely important, but it depends on the kinds of roles I do. Like, I completely identify with my character in 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.' I had to be myself and I didn't have to actually prepare for it.

Deepika Padukone

#47. I love character roles. I'm happier in them. I look for roles that have some kind of complexity.

Emily Blunt

#48. I feel like I've had a number of roles in suits, which is hilarious to the people who know me, because it couldn't be further from who I am and what I wear. I think that Aaron Sorkin is, to a certain extent, responsible.

Clark Gregg

#49. I really want to play interesting roles, but you want to work, so it's a balancing game.

Lily James

#50. I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.

David Levithan

#51. It's funny, because I've never thought of myself as a Hispanic actor, like in 'American Gangster,' I'm playing an Italian. I've always been fortunate enough to have been allowed to play all these diverse roles.

Yul Vazquez

#52. I don't really have dream roles. Every single time I've gotten a great job, it's far exceeded my expectations and my dreams.

David Oakes

#53. Usually being a young actor, you've got to go through certain levels of hierarchy, going through bit parts and extra roles and then kind of progressing up the food chain and having the size of your roles grow in that sense.

James Frecheville

#54. One thing I like about trying to write is that I can possibly write myself a role. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever roles are out there that people are willing to give to you.

Linda Cardellini

#55. I know at some point I would like to take on more dramatic roles.

Jon Heder

#56. The actors that inspire me are the comedians and the people able to shape-shift into different roles and into different media.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

#57. I do all kinds of roles - nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho, nerd, psycho - and occasionally someone kind of normal. It's weird, when I lived in Austin I was always cast as pretty normal people. But when I moved to Los Angeles I was immediately branded a psycho.

John Hawkes

#58. There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession. And when those rare roles come along, like 'Down to the Bone,' you have the opportunity to be of service.

Vera Farmiga

#59. Lead roles are fun, but I'm especially happy other, more colorful supporting stuff has come along.

Paul Giamatti

#60. I always had a larger view. I'm interested in real life - my family, my friends. I have tried never to define myself by my success, whatever that is. My happiness is way beyond roles and awards.

Amy Adams

#61. My goal is to just keep playing roles that are different from the roles I've played before.

Alicia Witt

#62. There are roles for all types of movies. I mean, you still want to watch the urban movies, and they need to be told. You still want to see something you haven't seen before.

Melissa De Sousa

#63. I want to be able to follow the example of those extraordinary British actresses who move effortlessly from film to TV to theatre roles.

Cate Blanchett

#64. The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.

Meryl Streep

#65. Not a lot of people make that transition from child actor to bigger, better roles.

Moises Arias

#66. I decided I should go after the roles I like, that I am inspired by, and then, if I am having a good time, chances are that people will like watching you.

James Marsden

#67. I love challenging films, really. I'd prefer to do some gritty, challenging roles. That would be awesome and really fun.

Charlie Rowe

#68. I learned from Seurat this important thing about colour and light, that 'a light' can be built from colour. I learned a great deal about interaction, that 'a blue' in different parts will play all sorts of different roles.

Bridget Riley

#69. It's weird when auditioning for roles, because a lot of my mates go out for the same roles. You don't want to know that you're beating someone to the role.

Brenton Thwaites

#70. You're always looking for roles and other creatives who are going to be challenging to you, because you're always a better actor after the experience.

David Oyelowo

#71. I've spent all my life playing roles that illustrious people have played before me.

Geraldine McEwan

#72. A lot of times, we also have to live and work. You have to make money to pay rent. In that respect, I don't think you can be so demanding. Those great stories are not the normal stories that come on a daily basis. It's a struggle to land those roles. Everybody is looking for the good parts.

Djimon Hounsou

#73. When I do the roles, when I'm in the room and auditioning, I'll ask the director if they're cool with me adding stuff, or just improvising while we're doing it. And I would say, like, 90 percent of the time, they say, 'Absolutely.'

Ben Schwartz

#74. I want to be strong enough to cope with the roles, but I don't want to be cast as the guy that takes his shirt off.

Richard C. Armitage

#75. I think the world is ready for people of color to take on more heroic and leading roles, and not always be the sidekick, the nemesis or any sort of stereotype of what a person of color can play typically in a Hollywood picture.

Jessica Alba

#76. I don't have a philosophy for choosing roles. Sometimes, it's just, 'This might be interesting; that might be fun to do.' There might be interesting actors or directors in the project, even if the part is not important. And then sometimes, you need the money.

Max Von Sydow

#77. In my first few years as an actor, I took one terrible TV job after another. But even as I laughed off my awful roles and made fun of myself to friends, my work made me cringe - I dreaded anyone's seeing it. I was crushed that I wasn't doing anything I was proud of.

Emily Mortimer

#78. Definitely when you get handed roles like Joel in 'The Last of Us,' that's something that will change your life, and I learned so much from that role.

Troy Baker

#79. We don't knoe when we're going to make our exits. But one day we'll pass away from this carnival with all its masks and roles, and only a few transient props will remain after us, until they too are swept away. We will step outside time, leave what we call 'reality'.

Jostein Gaarder

#80. I've done different conventions and had smaller roles in different sci-fi things.

Brigid Brannagh

#81. No one's calling me for lawyer roles. I still have a lot to do to prove myself.

Channing Tatum

#82. I enjoy having the ability to play a variety of ethnicities. Being ethnically ambiguous allows me to explore many roles, and I enjoy being free to be whoever I want to be.

Kelsey Chow

#83. One of the things you hope you've done as a playwright is create roles that can sustain different interpretations.

Tracy Letts

#84. I think the first thing that I really did was 'Traffic Light,' which was more of a half-hour sitcom. And from there, I just got more comedic roles.

Liza Lapira

#85. I got put into leadership roles very early in life from fifth grade, sixth grade. I always ended up being the quarterback or the leader of the sports teams, and it's kind of benefiting me now.

Tony Dungy

#86. Essentially, I'm a small-part actor who's been lucky enough to play leading roles for most of his life.

Alec Guinness

#87. Well, all I can say is thank goodness I had 15 years of theater before ever I did film roles. You build technique that you can rely on.

Chris Cooper

#88. You become megastars when superstars start reprising your roles.

Mithun Chakraborty

#89. It's interesting when you get those roles, which seem like nothing on the page, and you kind of subvert them. It's hard to say no.

Cate Blanchett

#90. While the secular world pushes woman to find her identity in herself as a sex object, the popular teachings in the Church, equally mistaken, encourage woman to find her identity in her roles as wife and mother rather than in her status as a person in Christ, a daughter complete in Him.

Leanne Payne

#91. I had two roles for which I compromised.

Sidney Poitier

#92. Our lives are written by the divine hands of Him we are merely actors destined to complete the roles in the cosmic play. All that would make difference would be how well will you act!

Preeth Nambiar

#93. You get nervous when you're identified with something that is really great and positive for so long. You don't want to not be that person, but there are going to be other roles in your career.

Melissa Peterman

#94. Sheep do best when they have personal contact with their shepherd. It was intended that the Church would continue after his departure to heaven. There are many roles in a functioning, normal Church.

Word Alive Press

#95. As an actor, you look for roles that can constantly challenge you and you can learn from.

Talisa Soto

#96. I think all the roles I've done have been very passionate people who go to absolute extremes to make their points.

Michael Rooker

#97. There are some great roles mostly in Shakespeare's tragedies which no one can play at full strength from beginning to end. One simply hopes that one can hit the peaks as often as one has the strength.

Peggy Ashcroft

#98. Real quality in roles is very hard to come by. Any actor or actress will tell you that. Great movies are hard to come by. It's almost impossible to make one, and most people have to settle for making something less.

Holly Hunter

#99. I do keep getting these bad girl roles. The funny thing is that, honestly, I don't think I'm believable as these aristocratic mean girls. But I do love playing them.

Katie McGrath

#100. At about 40, the roles started slowing down. I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers.

Kathleen Turner