Jessica Marais Quotes

One thing that's happened to me is I've been around a long time and I've played a lot of villains and so forth. I think it had to do with, well one thing is that I looked younger than I was for a long time. Now I think I'm suddenly starting to play people's father.

I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.

It wasn't my intention in going after this part but I suppose now I do. The adult roles are a lot meatier - you're not always just the daughter or the girlfriend or whatever.

I was never a juvenile lead or a romantic hero, and I didn't come into my own as an actor until I was 40.

I love when I am not typecast. I've been acting for 50 years. I was such a baby face; I was playing children until I was in my 30s, which frustrated me enormously. Now that I am 65 and getting to play women in their 50s, I am getting paid back for having to play children for so long.

The great thing about getting older and doing TV and theatre is that the roles get more interesting, and you're not cast because, 'Oh, she's always looked extraordinary.'

When you first get out of doing a show for a long time where you played a teenager, casting directors and producers all still look at you as being the character that you played for so long.

Character roles definitely age better than your ingenues. You don't get to keep doing that.

Usually, it gets worse and worse as they downsize your character; mine just kept getting better.

In Hollywood, you play a mom, and the next thing you know, you're on 'The Golden Girls.' They age you so fast.

Now I am an old hag, I get to play much more interesting characters.

I think it kind of took being a character actor to kind of now enter into leading ladies.

So I did that for a long time in my career, and I waited for parts to play myself just physically down a little bit. But I do feel like I'm at a place in my career now where I don't necessarily fret about that too much anymore.

I never played the 'decoration,' I always played the one who suffered. And then I got very lucky in my middle career, when I started playing the hero, which at that point was quite rare for women.

I'm in a place in my life where I get offered parts that I didn't get offered before - fathers and uncles and grandfathers and so on. And it took me a long time to get to that place, but I'm glad because it opens up new territory.

I've been incredibly blessed with good roles the past few years, but none of them compares to the experience of playing Ellsworth on 'Deadwood.' There are times when I've had as much fun or had comparably great material, but as a body of work, playing Ellsworth tops anything else in my lifetime.

The thing about being an actor is that as we get older, there are more and more characters to explore and, in general, they get more complicated, so you get to bring all your crazy life experience to the table.

I was warned not to do it. Actors who play Jesus are supposed to have a hard time getting other roles to follow, but I felt this was a myth. After all, how can you be typecast as Christ?

I've become really good at turning down the boring, pretty girl roles, the trophy wife, supermodel, beautiful girlfriend roles. I mean, playing somebody who's perfect holds no allure for me, whatsoever. It's just boring.

I hope it's not all I'll ever do, but I know I've played enigmatic characters. For me, the good characters are people who get places, are devious, are cunning and tricky and hard to pin down. Obviously, if you play one and you do an okay job of it, that'll be on people's minds.

I've always believed that if you are willing to play your age that you will work, so it's the thing of continuing to play your age and accepting it when you're younger and you suddenly realize, 'Oh, now I'm playing the mom,' 'Oh, I'm playing the grandma.'

I was never a leading man. I've always been in the outer concentric circles in the company, being a character actor, which is a good place to be. It gives you that diversity.

I broke into acting doing Latino roles. I played a Latino casanova in 'The Winner' and a Latino character on 'Hannah Montana.'

It's not so much that I'd like to play a raunchy character, but I would like to play someone my own age. I'm always playing down, but I guess it's good because it means I've got a longer life in my acting career.

I've played a lot of younger, more coming-of-age roles as well as roles that aren't such an imposing physical presence.