Stanley Tucci Quotes

I'm always looking for complicated characters in fiction about whom I can feel a dozen feelings at once - in the space of a single paragraph, even.

I'm attracted to playing people who aren't necessarily straightforward.

I never want to play a character that's one-dimensional.

I personally kind of yearn to play characters who are complex and who strike a truthful chord in me and who are challenged in some way and, I guess, who kind of move through those challenges.

Happiness, sadness, being mean and being nice. They're all very close to one another. My goal in my career is to do movies that are both... I hate when people say is it a comedy or a drama? My favorite movies are kind of both. Just like life, one day you're not crying all day, one day you're not laughing all day. I like to play characters that have that kind of balance, too.

I want to play the regular guy who's had a bit of a jaded past or a bit of a tortured soul because I think they're interesting.

I basically enjoy doing films that are about something, that have complex roles that I can sink my teeth into. Basically, I gravitate to things that scare me. They might be things that I don't think I know how to play. I like trying to find within me where this character may exist. Whether is it is a fictional character or not I am not motivated by that. It is more about how challenging it is. It is just so happens that the more high profile things I have done have been historical characters.

I think when I first started acting there were different people who I thought, 'I want that person's career or that person's career.' And as time has gone on, it's become really clear to me what is important to me; getting the best roles, the roles that I feel are challenging and scary and that I haven't done yet.

I just like playing interesting, complex, complicated characters. I like films that also have an element of humor.

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.

I enjoy taking on complex, difficult characters and have always striven to capture the truth of those people, whether or not it's popular.

I want to be doing smart, fun, complex characters like most actors want to do.

I would love to play a Bond Girl one day, but I'd also love to work on a project as challenging and heartfelt as 'Room.'

I am done with the cliched heroine roles. I can't go to work without a challenge. I want to do films that drive me, films in which I am a part of the main plot.

Comedy or villain, the role does not matter as long as it is challenging.

I can't be an arm candy to the hero. I need to play characters that have layers, that people can relate to.

There's not a comedy actor who doesn't want a chance to do drama, and vice versa. As actors, we're always looking to be pushed and to do the other side of the coin.

Because of my age, the roles that I'm in doesn't have as much depth as I would like, but that will change. Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, they play heavy, meaty roles, which are the sort that I want to play...because of what I look like, I play with my looks, which is cool, but I've done it so many times. But one day I would love to play against my looks.

. . . I felt that making her one-dimensional would be an insult to the audience, and also not as interesting. All destructive people have an inner side to them, and the more three-dimentional your characters are on screen the more compassion you can open up in an audience . . .. To me, that involves the audience more, it stimulates them and asks more of them.

Villains are not fun for me to play, as such. But caricature-ish, intense behaviors that are based on real human traits are interesting. That makes an interesting story.

I'm an actor and I am looking for roles where I can continue to evolve, and things that are challenging. I gravitate to the roles, not necessarily television or film. It's just the fact that, for me, the most interesting roles have been in television.

First of all, I would shoot myself if I ever had to play straight-forward characters that really don't have much of a past. Maybe it's just that I'm not a good enough actor to have to embellish, but I like having these really, really rich roles to play.

I don't know a single person in life that doesn't have conflict. I don't really enjoy acting enough to not want to experience something that feels like it really affects things. It's like, if you were a surfer, would you want to surf where there was like two-foot waves, or would you want to surf on like ten-foot waves. To me, the more kind of dramatic stories are more exciting for me, to play with.

You've got to pick your roles really carefully. It's a lot more fun to play a layered woman, than just someone where what you see is what you get, by far.

I like complex characters. I've been very, very lucky to portray, in these past three years, characters that are strong and fragile at the same time. It's those characters that I'm looking for. In the last year and half I played three different religions, and that allowed me to educate myself so much.