Annabella Sciorra Quotes

I was always the bad guy in westerns. I played more bad guys than you can shake a stick at until I played the Professor. Then I couldn't get a job being a bad guy.

The reason I am unemployed for six months out of every year is because I have to turn down most of the films I'm offered. If I didn't, I'd only ever play a dark, satanic count on a horse.

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 don't exactly set out to only play creepy characters, it's just that a lot of those roles come my way.

As an actor, I've been all over the map, but since I've moved to Hollywood, people tend to cast me in these more imposing characters, which is actually really fun for me. I've always been way more attracted to playing that than the hero.

After that, I was offered lots of lesbian roles, but I didn't want them because I'd already played the best there was.

People miss those who they love. It brings tears to my eyes to see the longing for me. But it's my decision to do fewer films and more protagonist-based roles. For me to take up something, it has to make a lot of sense to me.

You have to ask yourself if you want to be the kind of actress who's interesting, or the kind of actress who's meant to play the pretty-but-uninteresting wife of a chubby guy on a network sitcom.

I think it's the actor's job - when you think of being typecast or getting out of the shadow of whatever you've had success in - it's up to you as an actor. The industry will always want to hire you for what you were successful in last and what made money. But you can say no to that and look for other parts.

I've kind of had to make a career of playing villains. In order to stay employed, I had to figure out how to play bad guys.

Some movie I was in, I forget which one, some awful little movie, a reviewer said, What is Jessica Walter doing in this movie? And I said, Hello? Trying to make a living?

Of course, I would like to play the guy next door, but nobody's going to hire me for that kind of role.

I always wanted to be a filmmaker, but I started acting when I was 9 years old. I looked a certain part that I wasn't, really. I played, you know, a high school jock with a lot of attitude or a spoiled rich kid, and I was neither of those things. I was from a very working-class family in Van Nuys.

I think I'll get a little more interesting small parts and see if I can really... I guess you don't have to have the pressure on you compared to when you're a leading man in a film.

Your basic physical makeup does influence the parts you're offered. If you're big, they cast you either dumb or tough, although there are exceptions. Clint Eastwood and James Arness carved out niches for themselves in Westerns. I just hope I won't be faced with doing 'Li'l Abner' in dinner theater for the rest of my career.

For years after 'The Last Waltz,' I got all kinds of silly movie offers - or, maybe, not silly, but parts that are not my calling... lots of offers to play some wonderful boyfriend.

I do turn down things that I feel aren't right for me, like when it's some kind of adolescent thing that might typecast me, but I'm not worried about it.

I have to be careful not to do so many comedy airhead roles from now on. I've turned down a couple already.

I think early in my career, I didn't choose films that were crappy films, necessarily, but I didn't go out and campaign for smaller, better roles.

I think that there's not much point to being an actor if you're not enjoying it, so I try to be picky about roles I do like to go out for.

I think there's a big misconception out there about actors and the choices they have.

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.

After 'Mad Men,' I got offered various types of uptight Englishmen, which I wasn't interested in doing. I didn't want to repeat myself.

I never sought to play monsters in films.

I've said no to a lot of things because they didn't make me a leading man. They put me in a category I wasn't interested in.