J. K. Simmons Quotes

I had given thought to acting, but I never really had a good enough opportunity or a character who made sense and paralleled my life a little bit. I feel like I'm one of the poster boys for a bad guy in a movie. I feel like I'm a good person to play a bad guy in a movie. I can say that.

I've always considered myself a character actor.

For TV I don't think I could have gotten a better part than Uncle Junior because of the intimacy of the character based on David Chase's brilliant writing.

I didn't audition for 'Fargo.' It was a straight offer.

How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.

I've always considered myself a character actor. That's the way I was trained, really.

'Deadwood' was just a wonderful opportunity for me. Outside of my own things that I've written, I hadn't had the opportunity to play a character with that amount of depth and range.

I fit into the quirky, character class type of actor.

I was on 'The Shield,' which I was a fan of.

I have absolutely no problem on doing a negative character. If that matches up to my acting caliber, I will definitely do that.

A guy like Bray Wyatt, he could easily have played something in 'True Detective.'

Without sounding too cliche, my part on 'Getting On' is the best role I've ever had. It is so rich, it is so well rounded, and I am happy to be right here. I feel like I lucked out and got one of the richest characters on TV because he is so complex.

I jumped at the chance of doing 'Holby.' It's a great show.

They called and said, "I know we're not supposed to even tell you, but you've been offered to play the President." And I said, "OK. Say yes." And they were like, "Do you want to read it maybe?" And I was like, "No, I just want to be the president."

They were looking for someone to play the neighbor of the Jeffersons. I thought it would be a nice trip to Los Angeles. When you get a call like that, you don't expect much to come of it.

I feel happy when people hire me only as an actor.

I essay a negative or a positive character depending on whether it's a principle role and how much it drives the movie.

I had read Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Namesake' and thought it would make a fabulous film, as I could identify with the central character. When Mira Nair announced the film, I wanted to do the role. When it fell into my lap, I was over the moon.

I could not play a straight-ahead courageous hero. It's not what I do.

I'm not cut out to play a filmi hero. I don't look like a hero.

When 'Line of Duty' started on BBC2, there was a feeling that it couldn't ever become a big show because the BBC2 drama budget is much smaller, and a returning cop series would take away from the Stephen Poliakoff/David Hare stuff that they love to commission.

I don't mind playing even a grandfather provided the role is good.

We're all used to seeing a lot of cop shows, some of them brilliant, some of them very generic.

It's hard to reinvent the wheel with a cop show. But 'Rookie Blue' has a pure emotional center that's not cynical.

I'm very grateful that I'm the kind of actor where I'm not some character actor. I can't disappear into a world.