Harry Shearer Quotes

Nobody will tell you that you're typecast until your films aren't working; if it's working, they'll call it your 'zone.'

I'm unable to do the thing that Broadway actors do in plays, sometimes for years. The same exact blocking, the same exact lines. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. Every night I'm looking for ways to try something else.

I think right after 'Up in the Air' everyone wanted me to play the girl from 'Up in the Air,' and it took a little while for people to think of me as an actress from a film that they liked instead of just that character.

In school I was always being cast as the clown. And then I did 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose,' and once people hear you scream, they can't un-hear it. But I don't mean to say that I've been typecast, either.

I have to say a part of me was a little terrified to be only looked at as Shane from 'The L Word.' I was very conscious of doing something that would steer me clear or just steer me in a different direction.

I would always worry that I was only going to play the girl next door or the cute girlfriend. But I've been really lucky that all my roles have been very intense and completely different kinds of characters.

I sort of went 'Oh, great. I'm getting these great roles and I love doing them, but I'm going to be Anthony Perkins for the rest of my life.'

Naan' performed admirably, and the people have since associated me with that character. I am in no hurry to change that image.

'On the Road' is another one of those, a film in which the audience has a very clear idea of who they think your character is, so you know you are asking for it. But that's the challenge.

I would like to do more dramas when I find a good role that will allow me to politely upset people's expectations of me as a comic actor.

A lot of the time, as an actor, you don't have the freedom to change what your lines are, and they can often be very unnatural or difficult to portray in a real light.

I've played all kinds of historical characters, but they are stuck in movies that aren't their movies.

For a long time I did not want to do television because I did not want to get stuck playing the same person. I wanted the ongoing challenge of a variety of roles.

Sitcoms are incredibly limiting. When you do a sitcom and it becomes a signature part for you, it's harder to do something else; but if you do a drama, you can get lost in it and have a role to do other things.

I would really like to play someone contemporary, as I've done lots of period pieces. I would love to play an American bimbo or a grimy Londoner. But I'm probably more suited in people's minds to playing a corseted victim.

I started as an actor in the theater playing a lot of character parts, and suddenly, I found myself in this place where it felt like I was getting locked into a kind of a stereotype, and it did bother me.

People were confused by me, and at first I was auditioning a lot for the crazy characters or the victim, someone who'd been attacked. Which is great, because usually those are the best acting roles.

One of the things that would steer me away from a franchise is that I'm playing the same character all the time and I wouldn't want to be known for that.

If actors could actually make a living doing theater, that would be my first choice. Sitcoms are the closest thing to being onstage in front of an audience.

When someone gets closely related to a character they play on TV, it's very hard to break that mold and go on to do something else.

After I left 'Laverne & Shirley,' I got a ton of offers to play the goofy guy next door, and there were a couple of series that I was offered that turned out to be successful series, but it was too close to what I'd done on my series, and I was really glad I didn't take it.

Playing a character for four years, in people's minds, that's who you are.

I hate to talk about typecasting, because being typecast as Columbo ain't cancer.

My rule of thumb is to always do what's on the page first. Then you can talk to your director about playing with it. Improv frees me up in a character, but I would be mortified if the writers who agonized over their words assumed I thought my improv was more valuable.

As an actor, there's nothing worse than the sound of 'seven years'. I'm sure to some people it sounds amazing, but to us, it's, like, seven years of playing the same person.