Jonathan Banks Quotes

I don't know what it is about me that gets cast in specific roles. Some people would say, 'You're just a pretty face,' but on 'Battlestar,' I'm not looking pretty every day. I'm pretty banged up.

I keep getting cast as this bad guy, and I don't know why.

Mum asks why I am so often cast in adulterous roles. I think it must be because I am fairly flirty.

I didn't really look like a character actor, yet those were the roles I loved to play. If you were a character actor who didn't necessarily look like a character actor, you had to play bad guys.

I always play these bad guys, and I'm really a nice guy.

Everyone thinks I am exactly like the characters I play.

I know an actor who would play one type of part but could never get cast as tough. Once he got cast as tough, as a cop, he only got offered cop roles. It's a funny business in that regard. It's all about perception.

If someone plays a brooding actor in a film, people think they're brooding all the time.

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.

I play very sweet characters, so people look at me like I'm the kid from 'The Wonder Years,' rather than Brad Pitt.

When you're trying to look pretty, it's a lot easier to compare you to other people. I always felt intimidated in pilot season trying to audition for 'the girlfriend.' Whereas when it's like, 'you're auditioning for the part of this meth addict, trailer park whatever,' it's like, 'Great!'

Once you don't smile on film, they say, 'Let's have that bloke who doesn't smile.'

I certainly have never been an actor who can play the Everyman guy - or, I don't tend to get those parts. I've tended to play eccentrics. I've played a lot of villains, of course.

I really enjoyed playing Freddie Cork. People are always scared to approach me because of the character I played in 'Brotherhood.' The writing was very smart.

I was born a character actor.

I play a lot of hard men and gangsters, and I'm not like that at all.

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.

I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role. Maybe I've just done enough of them now where people are like, 'Oh, it's the guy that's in a swirling vortex of despair, send it to Kinnear!' I don't really know, but it does seem to be a recurring theme.

Anytime you're on camera, 95 percent of whatever character you're playing, unless you're Daniel Day-Lewis - or maybe, no, pretty much just him - you're cast because you're you.

I know that I've played a lot of comedic roles. It's a visual medium. When you get one role, you start to get cast in that role for awhile because that's what people have seen you do, and have hopefully seen you do it successfully.

Well, I've always been a character actor, you know, and you always get your share of character actors who are bad guys. So it never surprises me. And if it's good writing, you can find your way into the part well enough.

I think the reason they cast me as the good girls is because they couldn't find any in Hollywood.

I could say, 'I want to play a French-African humpback,' but I probably won't get that role.

It's so funny because the roles that I've been offered in the indie film world have been similar to each other, and the roles that I've been offered in the TV world have been similar to each other, but the TV roles and the indie film roles have been completely different.

People say I'm a one-note actor, but the way I figure it, those other guys are just looking for that one right note.