Bette Midler Quotes

I do try and stay away from the stereotype and getting typecast.

I don't relate to people that look like me. I find it deeply unsatisfying to play a version of myself. It was something I had to figure out really early on, when I was at RADA, because I was being cast, over and over again, as the young, virginal thing. When I left RADA, I was on an absolute mission to never wear make-up.

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.

For me, in general, it's always about the material. Obviously, it's about the material and hoping that someone wants to hire me for a job, too, but I've certainly seen films like 'Orphan' and movies like that where I know that if I had had the opportunity to read that script or had an opportunity to do it, I would have wanted to do it.

Let's say you would see me in a lot more big movies had I done movies that I'd been asked to do playing bad guys. Now that I have a child on the way, I think that you'll probably be seeing me play more bad guys. If that's what's going to put bread on the table, that's what I'm going to be doing.

I never want to turn something down because I'm afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.

I've been told if you're an actress you can't sing, if you're a dancer you can't act, you can't do theatre and be respected if you've done a TV soap, you can't have a No. 1 record. All these different things they've told me I can't do, but I wanted to do them, so I've done them.

I am an actor who turned hero at age 32, after many years of struggle. I wanted to break the stereotype that only good-looking men with a good complexion, height and physique can be heroes, which I have managed to do.

I did art; I made furniture. I didn't want to be a cliche - the Beatle's son who became a musician.

Where I come from, you don't just say, 'Oh, I'm going to become an actor.' Talk like that and they think you're crazy.

I love actresses who are brave and don't do what's expected of them or don't play off how they look or take risks.

You're made aware of what the industry is and what you need to conform to; I don't fit that, and I'm never going to.

When I decided to become an actress, I think I let some people down. It was a kind of rebellion.

One of the reasons I moved to New York was because I thought it would be easier to say no to dreadful scripts. I wouldn't be tempted to fly back and do them. There are some things even I won't do.

I need to make the characters that I play in movies more accessible to audiences, more real. As an actor, you're always passive; you're not making that many choices, so when something allows you to open up a bit, you want to explore your newfound freedom.

'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 only place that I'd be worried about being typecast is the independent film world.

I love a challenge. And I love defying limitation, gender stereotypes, and people's expectations of me as an actress.

Hollywood typecast me as the secretary. I could have worked as the quirky secretary for the rest of my life, but I decided not to do that.

I was playing pretty boys and these angelic roles like Nicholas Nickleby and all that stuff. And I was like, 'What am I doing? This isn't who I am, as a man or an artist.' I had to overcome people's belief that I was too pretty to be a badass.

I've never been like Angelina Jolie, who at one time was spewing out this prototype Bad Girl stuff for people to consume. I've never boxed myself in that way. People can create boxes for me by all means, but it doesn't mean I'm going to step inside them.

It's liberating to wear clothes that are outside the boundaries of what I'm supposed to wear, ya know, based on the traditional model, whether that be a country music singer, or being from the country. It's not a rebellious thing.

If you are a woman and an actor, it does not mean that you have to contain or limit yourself to just being that.

When I signed 'Kaaka Muttai,' a lot of directors told me that I shouldn't be doing the role of a mother so early in my career. But I went ahead, as I aspire to do challenging roles.

After the release of 'Ashta Chemm,' several producers and directors came with similar roles in their films. But I doesn't want to do stereo type roles and do something different for each film, and refused them.