Henry Czerny Quotes

I'm drawn to roles that have real substance, that aren't just the victim or the teenage girl or the girlfriend.

The thing is, I don't just take roles because they're performance capture.

I like to play characters that are convincing, that aren't just straightforward and nice.

I read the script and decide if a particular character looks fun to play. I look for complexity and a sense of humor. Those are crucial, real things to life.

I think you can always find interesting, complex and fascinating characters to play in different kinds of movies. It's in your hands.

That's all you can do as an actor - take the best thing available.

Many number of times I say no when a producer or a director asks me to do a cop's role, unless the film is very interesting.

If a role has been too one-dimensional, I have turned it down.

As an actor, I'm constantly striving to find the darkness in the lighter characters and the lightness in the darker characters.

In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc.

I'm very particular about the kind of music that I record and sing, and it would be the same way about the kind of movies that I would do.

There's no particular role that comes to mind that I'd like to take on, but for me, it's about playing interesting characters and not just two-dimensional ones.

I think it's fair to say I'm attracted to playing characters who are rather intense.

I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.

I'm sure my agents would like me to play leading roles, and I guess I should, but I'm more interested in the character parts. They're more fun, challenging and interesting.

The moment you say, 'I want to do a role,' the story suffers. I don't set priorities in terms of roles or scripts.

I always look to play flawed characters. I'm not very interested in playing somebody that's just, you know, the very nice one or the attractive one, or whatever, which a lot of female parts can just be written that way.

I don't go for glamour roles.

I know myself - I cannot just play a cliche. It has to be a character; it has to be written with the complexity of the human being behind. Could be bad, could be good, could be someone we would hate, but still, I need a reason for that influence, and I need to understand why.

Well, usually when I finish one character, I'm looking for a role that's really different.

Well, I think certain roles are chosen for us. The moment I read Pete Campbell I thought: I can do this, this is mine. And in Money, too. The truth is I turn down a lot of projects. If a character doesn't have some kind of internal struggle, it's no good for me.

I never sought to play monsters in films.

Actors are at the mercy of roles that are offered.

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.

I played the ingenue, of course, when I was young - but even with those, I tried to make interesting choices and mess them up a little bit - make them layered and complicated and not all stereotypes.