Gugu Mbatha-Raw Quotes

Sometimes, the smaller roles in movies can be the most interesting. If you only take the stance that you'll only play central characters in movies, you'll find yourself not being able to indulge in that morally grey terrain that makes support characters so rich and interesting.

I am fine playing 'Law & Order' and even the 'Jurassic' movies to be straight up, as far as the characters being portrayed there, but I never want to stay in straight-up land too long. I always wanted to do something where the character's world gets to be explored.

I think you end up writing things you like. I like seeing actors playing two different parts at the same time. I think it's interesting. It kind of shows you two sides of a person.

My job is to take out the negativity from a positive guy and take out the positivity from a negative guy. I don't play positive or negative roles. This is what I find fascinating about acting.

[on playing Walter] It was wonderful to be able to play a character who had so many colors and who was able to play comedy, to play incredibly vulnerable, which he did a lot of the time, to play the love story, and to play the relationship with the son, which is quite unusual. That's a gift to me, as an actor. It was like everything you could possibly hope for, over five years. So, I was a very lucky actor.

I actually prefer getting into roles that are the polar opposite of me; that's why I've done so many dark and dreary things.

I continue to be known as a guy that plays really complex, three-dimensional characters.

People have all these preconceptions about me. Whereas if you look at the roles, Henry Hill was the nicest guy in 'Goodfellas!' I was a nice guy too in the comedy 'Heartbreakers.' And I was a really sweet father to Johnny Depp in 'Blow!'

Disney acting is a little more difficult than many people think it is. People feel like the characters aren't deep, but as an actor, you try to do everything you can do the best of your ability.

You have to be brave and not always play likeable people. It's difficult, because there's a demand for the hero or heroine to be very likeable.

As an actor, you don't want to play a one-dimensional character.

I like playing characters that are complex, that are intriguing, that come from left field, that do things that are unexpected. I don't like people who just follow one line and that's it - that's why I could never be in a sitcom, I don't think. They're not intriguing enough for me.

Positive characterizations are complex characterizations. That's all we need to know. They shouldn't be saccharine. They shouldn't feel like medicine.

I would love to play a villain someday in that I think that what I've done with my whole career is walk this tightrope between charming and creepy, and I always fall on the charming side. I'd like to fall on the creepy side and be like one of those scary old men, like really charming villains.

I would say that a lot of the characters I've been attracted to are very vulnerable and they expose themselves emotionally. Not so much in 'The Fighter,' not so much in 'The Master' - I think those are different.

I don't like to play characters that are one note, and just the attractive girl in the film.

You do 'New Girl,' you play a character like Schmidt, you crave as an actor afterwards to just do something different.

It's really rare to come across a character, a show, or a movie that allows you to completely play four or five different characters within a season, let alone a week.

I have played characters where I haven't been absorbed - you know, what I call a typical film leading man role where you just have to look gorgeous and be attractive and charming. It bores me. I like a bit of dirt, a bit of sand in the oyster.

I would probably choose supporting roles if I had to make a choice. It's actually a really hard thing to say. It's all on a role-by-role basis, ultimately. I shouldn't be so quick to say that. I feel like you're given greater license to be colorful and eccentric in supporting roles, and that's interesting to me.

Sherlock' changed the perception of me. I have these cheekbones and this face that suggest very middle-class or period-drama roles. I want to show everyone there's much more to me than Irene Adler.

As an actor, my job is not to always play characters who make everybody happy. That's not interesting.

As actors, you have to keep showing variety in performance, as people are lazy to think about you in a different way.

Whenever you're playing somebody who is, by all accounts, rotten, don't focus on the rotten stuff. That stuff will take care of itself. It's already in the script; the audience is already experiencing it without you having to add an extra feel of evil. Just play them like regular people.

I'm really a big fan of HBO and Showtime shows, so I wouldn't mind being on an edgy show... where I could challenge myself to do gritty stuff - a homeless guy or just some guy with a lot going on who's got problems. It's more fun to do as an actor.