Rainn Wilson Quotes

It's fun for me to play people that are just kind of odd.

That's what I'm drawn to: playing characters that are completely different.

There are many actors I admire, but I always look at people who have done a variety of roles - people such as Simon Russell Beale or Ralph Fiennes.

I'm always drawn towards the darker stuff, because I think it's just a lot more interesting. But it's also good fun doing the comedy, and I think that's why 'Misfits' has been great in that way, as you get a really good balance. I think it's best to try and do everything as an actor, really.

The thing is, I want to play real characters and not all girls can be pretty. The thing is, you get these girls who say 'I'm a character actor' then you see them in a role and nothing has really changed but the outfit.

I love acting, and ultimately all my characters are very different, and each character I love in a different way.

I think of myself as an actor. The duty of an actor is to be able to impersonate anything - a child, an old man, a tree, a chair, a woman.

It's a great challenge to get to play a real-life character. Every actor would love to get a chance, at least once in his life, to play a real-life character.

Typecasting is something I have to be careful with, since I play myself on Geek & Sundry so much on my weekly show 'The Flog.' That's why I did 'Dragon Age: Redemption' last year, so I could do something a little more dramatic and hard-edged.

That was the fun of acting, being a blank canvas you could transform into the character - Indian princess, 20s vamp, Mother Courage, Oxford don, 94-year-old wife.

It was fun playing a horrible, snotty kid in 'Harry Potter', and then playing Prince Charming where I was also singing and playing guitar, and then playing a completely different character.

I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.

I love playing characters, so I'm always telling my agents, 'Don't worry if the character description is something you think I'm not. Let me try to be that person.'

I admire actors that consistently challenge themselves and play a wide range of different roles. Every actor has a reason for being an actor... it's boring to play the same person over and over again. People like Daniel Day Lewis, who completely transform time and time again, I look up to.

The reason I feel like I act is because you get to live a million different lives in one. I don't have to go about my life, just being easy-going New Zealander Rose. Sometimes I can inhabit a feisty, vicious character. Sometimes I can inhabit a painfully shy British girl, or whatever it might be.

I'm proud of the versatility I've had since I was in high school, getting in trouble for all these voices. What happened was that there were so many of these big heroes I played - in 'Dark Void,' 'Assassin's Creed,' 'Shadow Complex,' 'Uncharted,' and 'Prince of Persia' - and they all showed up at about the same time. It got a little ridiculous.

Actors have either got to play something that's close to them, or something that's the complete opposite.

I hope to do multiple characters throughout my life that are separate from me. I think it's a cop-out if you play yourself in everything.

I like to play a wide range of characters. The more they're unlike me, the better I like it.

For me, the performance was always playing different people. And so when I got older, was no longer the romantic leading movie star, it became more and more interesting for me, the characters I played, you know?

I find that comedy is my specialty, but drama is slowly starting to move up in that rank. I've always liked playing a character that has depth and that I'm able to bring my own niche to.

Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.

I don't mind playing bad guys, but I love having the opportunity to play all different types of characters.

And as much as I love the gritty characters, I like to play all sorts of characters. I'm an actor. I love to create.

After we'd filmed one series of 'Kiss Me Kate,' everyone was saying: 'The guy's got great comic timing,' - that was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not a comedian, I don't want to depend on a singular box of tricks. I like story and characters, to take on world views that are not my own.