Alessandro Nivola Quotes

I'm a character actor - always have been, always will be - and historically, character actors don't come into their own until later in their professional and chronological lives.

I've made the transition from star to character actor and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

When I wanted to be an actress, I never wanted really to be the kind of actress I became.

I was only a leading man for a minute; now I'm a character actor.

Once the second season of 'Haven' rolled around, I really started to attack this acting thing and finally admitted, 'OK, I'm an actor now. This is what I'm doing. This is my new career.'

I think most actors don't start out wanting to be either a lead or a character actor. You just really want to work, whatever manifestation that takes.

What's great about being a character actor is you know that you can survive forever. It's not about the gloss of your eyebrows.

I'm an actor. If you had said to me before I started acting that I'd get two bites of the cherry - you would do things that people will remember forever like 'The Brothers' which I did in the '70s and now 'Doctor Who' - I'd have been overjoyed and I still am.

I was a theater man, so I was never in the situation of being a handsome Hollywood leading man, and then having to age.

I have my character actor side as a kid and my more leading man side. It's all been beneficial.

As a child, I always wanted to be an actor. But as I grew older, the acting dream kind of faded away, and I took to studying a lot. A few years later, a relative of mine who really wanted me to try my hand at acting sent my photographs to a few production houses, and like they say, the rest is history.

I was the nerdy one. I always played those kind of characters until Mad Men.

My journey has been that of a character actor.

Most young actors, that's all they're trying to do: Get better at acting and be able to keep doing it. And that doesn't work out for most people.

Going through the ranks and all the training you do as an actor, you hope you're going to make it. But there's a part of you that's got to be realistic and say: 'Look, it might not happen to me.'

I think every leading man wants to be a character actor, and every character actor wants to be a leading man.

I'm still trying to figure myself out as an actor.

I feel that I have grown so much as an actor being on 'Homeland.'

I feel so comfortable in an acting role, you know, as an actor. Maybe it's because I came into it late. If anything, I've felt frustrated that I can't carry a film because everything since 'District 9' has been supporting roles.

I have only really gotten by with playing versions of myself as most young actors do.

I started out doing things like 'Flash Forward,' where I was the girl-next-door, and then, I did a show called 'Higher Ground,' where I played this really mean, sarcastic girl. Then 'Firefly' happened, and everybody thought of me as this bubbly, sweet girl-next-door again.

Being an actor in L.A. is like being in prison: you go, you serve your time, you try to replicate Johnny Depp's career - and then you move to Paris.

I've said maybe too many times that I'd rather be typecast than not cast at all.

I don't have to be a leading man. I can be a character actor. That's really what interests me anyway.

I'm a character actress, plain and simple... Who can worry about a career? Have a life. Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don't work, and then they work again.