George Gaynes Quotes

I don't know what's wrong with me - I don't know why I only get picked to play strange characters!

I'm either offered window-dressing parts in large movies or little art films no one ever sees. People think the movies I end up doing are my real choices. I do the best things I'm offered.

If you're a sexy actress, it's hard to get serious roles. You get offered the same thing they've seen you in. People are like sheep, and they're like, 'Oh, that's what she does well.'

So the only things I was being allowed to audition for were small roles in comedies. It broke my heart. No one would see me for anything else. I knew, in order to open up my career, I had to leave or that's all I would ever be given.

I'd like to play passionate women, but no one will let me.

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

I was reading through endless junk scripts that were being sent my way. Typically the roles were to play his wife or his girlfriend - leading roles for women were few and far between.

I think that I've been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I've spent so much time in front of a green screen.

In England or America, actors do not have to cater to an image. In India, it is almost demanded of us. Very seldom do you get a film where you can walk away from your image.

I would love to do parts I have never done before, but unfortunately, if you have had success in a particular type of character, the casting agents think, 'Oh! We'll have something exactly like that.' It's very boring.

Of course, I would like to play the guy next door, but nobody's going to hire me for that kind of role.

At first I was always cast as the girlfriend. It was a long time before I got to play characters who were people.

After The Wizard Of Oz I was typecast as a lion, and there aren't all that many parts for lions.

I feel blessed that I am able to play really dark guys in a business where they usually want you to play the same character over and over. Poor Michael Rapaport will being playing white homeboys till the day he dies. That's not the kind of career I want.

A lot of times black actors get stuck in a box. They're up against a lot of limitations for the kind of films that they get approached about. It's easy to get stuck in a box and just be approached about nothing but urban films.

The girl-next-door image is a sort of joke; for years, I couldn't get any roles other than as somebody dark.

I got pigeonholed a bit. When I wanted to be an actress, I never wanted to be the kind of actress I became.

I can't get the serious roles. People don't see me that way.

The studios always had their idea of what I was, and they'd give me the dumb-blonde roles.

For a while, I thought that I was only going to be cast in Second World War films.

When I was younger, you get pigeonholed in parts, which is understandable.

A lot of times, I'll get roles where it's the dumb blonde or the cheerleader, and I just have no interest - and it can be a great movie, it really can - or the mean girl; those things don't intrigue me much.

When I was younger in the theater, I didn't really feel like I got much recognition from the powers that be. I got a lot of small roles - I never got the standout roles.

For the first six years of my career, I was relegated to those girl-next-door, sweet, cheerleader kind of roles, and it was really frustrating for me because you don't have to do much acting.

When I first finished 'Sharpe,' it was hard to get work because people only saw me as him.