David Benioff Quotes

You know, I don't think you need to be educated to be a great actor.

I never pretended to be a great actor.

My brother was scouted for a commercial when he was three, and it was just because he could speak clearly and was well behaved, basically. I don't think he had any amazing acting ability at that age - although he is actually a great actor.

Actors do tend to get pigeonholed. People want to know who you are so they can put you in a box. It's lovely to be known for such diametrically opposite roles.

I try to do as many different roles as the system will allow me. That's the benefit of not being in a giant blockbuster where you're the lead and you get typecast in that kind of role. I am able to slip in or out of a lot of different parts.

Here's what I have at my advantage: I've never been a personality. I've always been a character actor.

After 'Homeland,' I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I've done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.

I think, before 'Watchmen,' I was the guy from 'Grey's Anatomy' who's a pretty good guy, a pretty charming sweet guy, and so as an actor, I really wanted to do something as far from that as I could.

I'm usually the bad guy, you know, but I do a lot of different genres of acting.

I think I have proven that I can play any type of character.

Mithunda is a great actor. He has done all kinds of roles simultaneously and that's no mean feat.

I can be the girl next door, be the sexy girl, be an action girl. As an actor, this is something that people need to see.

I love Mike Winters. He's such a great actor.

The people I respect in the history of acting, from the beginning, were chameleons.

As actors, the great thing about our career is we get to change from role to role. I don't want to be known as "put him in the movie because he has nice abs" guy.

What kind of role do you play after someone like Stringer, you know what I mean? You play another gangster. What’s the point of that? I’ve played the gangster. I try to keep it really varied; it just makes for more of a fun and interesting career.

Bob Duvall is a great actor because each time out, he creates a whole, complete character. You have the feeling that you're not seeing an actor at all, but a fully realized human being. Think of how he was in The Godfather. If you didn't know Bobby, you'd think that he really was Tom, the consigliere. Then you see him in Santini, and he's completely different. He's not only a personality, he's a consummate actor.

Maybe for others it was difficult to find a role that suited my type. But I never thought of myself as a type. I really thought I could play anything, quite frankly. And I have. Especially in the theater, which is where I came from. And I may go back to soon, as a matter of fact. To Broadway.

I've never been someone who is cast for having a lovely figure but for whatever qualities I could possibly bring to a role, so I'm still castable.

I think Stanley Tucci was having an affair with his mother. He had this odd quality that I haven't seen him ever get to do again in a movie that just made me think he's got some chops. He's got a strangeness to him, but he's also clearly been stuck in this role because of his looks and his type. He's been really pigeonholed, I felt.

I always loved how people like Jon Voight and Laurence Olivier shocked you every time they came on-screen. They were so different each time. That's what I hope to do with acting - be the chameleon and not get stuck in a type.

Everybody says I can't act. They said the same thing about Elizabeth Taylor. And they were wrong. She was great in A Place in the Sun. I'll never get the right part, anything I really want. My looks are against me. They're too specific.

Woody Allen is a better actor than anybody from the Actors Studio, and he can be anybody he says he is.

I feel very lucky because I don't think there's any part I can't play. There are parts that scare me more than others.

I'm lucky that I get to play a wide variety of parts.