Ron Eldard Quotes

After 'Homeland,' I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I've done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.

After doing 'War and Peace,' I suddenly got lots of seductress roles. It's easy to put people into a category after you've seen them in one thing that you feel fits with them. But I'm trying to make a conscious decision to do different things.

Most of the time actresses are just left to play the actor's wife or girlfriend so there is not much to do. 'Chalo Dilli' was a refreshing change which was different and that's why I decided to work in it.

I don't want to be typecast as a heroine doing just glamorous roles.

I feel that a lot of roles in television can really typecast someone as one type of actor or playing one type of role, but I really don't think that my role in 'Weeds' did at all.

Many times an actor is stuck for the lack of choices. The same happened with me when I started my career. That was the time when mainly romantic films were being made, and that is what I was offered all the time.

As soon as I started acting in England, I got unusual roles. Although I'm 6 foot six, and agents might standardly cast me in tough guy roles or the big guy in the back, I've been very blessed to do roles that makes them think twice about how they're gonna cast me.

As a 6-foot, 6-inch, 300-pound black man, I've done everything I can to stay out of that box that Hollywood tries to put me in. I've been able to play a variety of roles, like the character of Vern in 'Shall We Dance?' with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez to the character of Neal in 'Things We Lost in the Fire.' I've been blessed.

After 'Champion,' I got like 20,000 psychopath roles! And they wanted me to strip and show my body in every film. But I have tried to balance my roles.

I would love to experiment with roles. But when people say that we are not doing anything different, it is because directors do not approach us with diverse roles.

I didn't want to take the typical action roles that everybody was expecting me to take, because I was going to get typecast as that guy, the action guy who didn't have anything really bright to say and who just kicked in doors and punched people in the face and shot people and drove off in a cool car. I didn't want to be that guy.

I don't have one specific dream role: I'm an actor, so I want to play everything. In this business, they'll pigeonhole you in two seconds if you're great at the role you play. Everyone assumes that you're really just like that character.

I think any actor in their right mind is afraid of getting pigeonholed.

Yeah, there's a tendency to get pigeonholed in Hollywood.

Probably a concern to either a major or minor degree with most actors if they're really motivated to kind of make a significant difference in the business is the 'pigeon-holing' thing.

I would love to do more movies, but the reality is women have many more opportunities on television to play a greater variety of characters.

I was happy she got it and I have to sort of - and one of the reasons I did Third Watch is because I wanted to break that thing of just being the pretty girl and play it down and let it be about the work.

At this point in my career, it doesn't bother me much that I'm probably hopelessly typecast. I like to work, and horror films definitely keep me working.

I've been very lucky with my career and don't feel like I'm being typecast in the same role over and over again.

'Night of the Comet' established me as a strong woman. And let's face it, this business is very surface and one dimensional - so it's easy to get typecast.

The 'boy next door' parts I get offered, I don't find interesting.

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

I thought, 'Oh, acting is going to be great - I get to play different parts.' And then these auditions started coming up for terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, and I'm going, 'Whoa, what's this about?'

I played several maids in my career. I was tired of the maid after 'Far From Heaven.' I said, no more maids. Until I realized how difficult it was to get a role other than a maid, sometimes, in Hollywood, and sometimes you have to choose your battles, for lack of a better term.

The problem with the film industry is that once one starts out as a villain, subsequent offers are those of similar roles.