Ben Stiller Quotes

I'm hoping I can evade a type and go for roles based on what I consider plausible and what I consider good.

I think if you do something effectively whether you're the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you'll get asked to play that part again.

I don't mind being identified as any character as long as I'm doing a good job as an actor. I have done all kinds of roles - from an editor, judge, police officer, murderer to a corrupt businessman.

I was offered a lot of supporting crazy parts in comedies because that's all I had done.

I've played such serious characters that no one sees me the way I actually am, which is completely cheesy and goofy, so it would be fun to do a romantic comedy and just have a good laugh.

I do keep getting these bad girl roles. The funny thing is that, honestly, I don't think I'm believable as these aristocratic mean girls. But I do love playing them.

I would really like to play someone contemporary, as I've done lots of period pieces. I would love to play an American bimbo or a grimy Londoner. But I'm probably more suited in people's minds to playing a corseted victim.

I didn't really look like a character actor, yet those were the roles I loved to play. If you were a character actor who didn't necessarily look like a character actor, you had to play bad guys.

My cinema is of a different kind: give me a good meaty role instead of two or three songs and running around in foreign locations wearing itsy-bitsy costumes. I'm clear and focussed about my priorities.

It has happened with me that I get a role of a cop for a film. Few directors typecast you if you do that particular role well. But, it is the actor who has to decide whether he fits in that role or not.

For most of my career, I've played roles that were written for other actresses.

Every role that I have taken on has demanded some kind of emotional range. I really, really would love to do a comedy, but that opportunity really hasn't opened up.

I've had some marvelous parts, but I'm also asked to play characters who are kind of superficial people.

I've got all these great broads in me, all these character women. I was playing a torn-down stripper at twenty-five on Broadway, and now I fit the shoes.

Typecasting is an interesting thing because, in a way, if you're good at something, you're going to work at that thing. In other ways, you constantly have to change people's opinion of you as one thing, especially if you want to play different roles. You have to shatter that image sometimes.

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.

I don't know what it is about me that gets cast in specific roles. Some people would say, 'You're just a pretty face,' but on 'Battlestar,' I'm not looking pretty every day. I'm pretty banged up.

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 have said to my agents, 'I want to work. I want to play character roles.'

I really enjoyed playing Freddie Cork. People are always scared to approach me because of the character I played in 'Brotherhood.' The writing was very smart.

As an actor, all you want to do is to work and do good work.

Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.

I want to be a good actor more than anything - someone you can respect.

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.

I always seem to get parts where I play the sports professional - and that's not me at all!