Javed Jaffrey Quotes

Being an actor, I have no issues with a character being negative or positive as long as the role is substantial and meaty.

Did Anthony Hopkins really have to be a serial killer to be in 'Silence of the Lambs?,' I don't think so, no. It's called acting, people.

I'm not interested in the heroes or the villains. I'm interested in playing people.

What I truly get excited about is not the genre of a movie or the size of a part - it's character. I like to find characters.

I get to play characters that kind of shock people and I enjoy doing that. I like characters that have meaning and get people in the heart. I want to be able to get people to cry or make people angry or sad.

I play a tough cop in 'Very Good' and the role is quite similar to Dhaya Nayak, Mumbai's popular encounter specialist. I have made all efforts to fit the role.

I need to react to a script, to feel strongly about it in some way. And I need it to be a complex character for sure. And also, I think a lot about what kind of audience there is for the film, what they're looking for and ways to connect with them in the playing of a character.

Creating a character and living truthfully through her is a whole different ball game. It's all part of the same person but it's a much newer medium for me.

My only job as an actor is to try and understand the character and, to the best of my ability, bring this character to life.

I just try not to look at any role as a comedic role or a dramatic role. I just try to stay in the movie I'm in.

I do play villains.

I think one of the few faults in Dickens is that mostly his lead characters are blanks - who is David Copperfield, who is Oliver Twist? And yet he takes such joy in populating the rest of his novels with these fantastic, grotesque people like Pecksmith and so on.

I don't feel like a romantic lead; I guess I feel more like a character actor.

I never really thought about what characters I play. I always just wanted different characters.

Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it's a struggle sustaining that, because there's such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.

In terms of the character itself, I can't really say that I find anything really difficult. I enjoy the character so much I don't perceive difficulty in trying to be him. It's just a matter of how do we get there.

Until Genevieve I had tended towards the more dramatic type of role.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

As an actor, one's role is very much to respond and react to the situation within the context of the character and his world.

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

I care about all the characters I play, and I get quite defensive about them.

I would love to play Bobby in 'Company.' Also, I would love to play George in 'Sunday.'

I like character-driven stuff. It doesn't matter, the size of the part.

You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.