Dallas Roberts Quotes

I did a play once where a reviewer said, 'Martin Freeman's too nice to play a bad guy.' And I thought: 'Well, bad guys aren't always bad guys, you know?' When I see someone play the obvious villain, I know it's false.

I'm always just drawn to those roles that present one way and have many other things going on underneath. It's just more fun to play as an actor.

As an actor, I'm constantly striving to find the darkness in the lighter characters and the lightness in the darker characters.

We're not one thing, as human beings, so any character that is written uni-dimensional, that's just a shallow character with shallow writing and shallow acting.

When actors are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.

I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.

Part of my strength as an actor comes from what I've learned all these years: when you play a villain, you try to get the light touches; when you play a hero, you try to get in some of the warts.

There's something really exciting about playing someone where you're given license to be unpredictable.

The more secrets and twists in a character, the better.

I like repressed characters. That gives me a lot of freedom to make a lot of different choices through subtleties.

Even if I'm playing a bad guy, I work hard to make him multi-leveled and interesting.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.

Flashy characters are more entertaining to people because you get it. You don't have to work to get someone who says what they mean and says what they think. They're out there. It's harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness.

When a character has so many secrets and so much inner life, it's a joy to play those characters because you can use your craft.

When it's a bigger character, and there's a lot going on for her, and there are all these different elements that go into the character, I just love being able to dive into it.

I didn't like characters that were one- or two-dimensional. I liked a guy to have a lot of different levels to him and layers, and I think I pretty well succeeded with Thanos.

Without sounding too cliche, my part on 'Getting On' is the best role I've ever had. It is so rich, it is so well rounded, and I am happy to be right here. I feel like I lucked out and got one of the richest characters on TV because he is so complex.

I would love to play a completely negative character if it's backed by a super script.

I have never had more fun in my life playing a character than I've had playing Michael Langdon. He's so delicious. He's so layered and complicated.

I like bringing little subtle complexities to a character. It's all about the subtext. No one can really describe or fully know another human being, even if they get a hook on them. It's more about instinctively knowing whether you like somebody or not.

It's good fun to create an unpredictable character. When he comes into the room, I don't know what he's going to do - I have to find my way.

I like playing guys where it's as important what they're thinking as what they're saying. Those are the people I like playing, and the actor that I strive to be. I like actors who work in that area and I like parts that allow me to work in that area.

I can't be an arm candy to the hero. I need to play characters that have layers, that people can relate to.

What I'd look for are roles in which the heroine's character has substance rather than just glamour.

It's not easy trying to get into the psyche and behaviour patterns, which are far removed from one's own personality. Some intense characters linger long after it's over on screen.