Paula Malcomson Quotes

Every time you play a bad girl or guy in a movie, you really come from a place of pain.

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've always tried to have a healthy take on the characters I play; they are only characters I play.

I never judge the characters I'm asked to play, and I don't need to feel that they are a part of me.

For me, portraying a character is not about liking or disliking it; it's about meeting a challenge that's thrown at you.

I think there are parts of myself in every character I play.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

You have to like the characters you play.

Creating a character and living truthfully through her is a whole different ball game. It's all part of the same person but it's a much newer medium for me.

When I play a villain, I usually get home and sleep straight through the night. It's physically and emotionally draining.

Throughout your whole career, there's a bunch of people you might have to kiss. Say there's this character opposite you, and you might not be into her - or him, personally. You just gotta' do it. That's your job.

My job always is to play a person, not to judge her.

I love doing emotional scenes. As I've had a perfect life, I don't really have much to pull from. But it's really fun and not that challenging. It's almost pretty easy. The hardest thing is to try and make people laugh. That's a really hard thing.

There is such a cliche to certain roles that all I can do is to try to make them realistic and work for the times, and so the audience actually won't see me as a caricature of something, but rather as an actual person.

I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it's a struggle sustaining that, because there's such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.

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

In 2005, I had the great honor of playing Shailene Woodley's mother in 'Felicity: An American Girl Adventure.' I was immediately impressed by her work ethic, both on and off set.

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.

I'm not saying that I am all of my characters, but for me to bring a character to life, you've got to be able to find your own truth.

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.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

A lot of film stars are just playing themselves in different frocks.

I care about all the characters I play, and I get quite defensive about them.

Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays.

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.