Danielle Fishel Quotes

I'm in a place in my life where I get offered parts that I didn't get offered before - fathers and uncles and grandfathers and so on. And it took me a long time to get to that place, but I'm glad because it opens up new territory.

The roles I was lucky enough to get were real stretches for me: usually a character who was older, or a little weird, or whatever. And it was hard, not just for the lack of work but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.

I don't have one specific dream role: I'm an actor, so I want to play everything. In this business, they'll pigeonhole you in two seconds if you're great at the role you play. Everyone assumes that you're really just like that character.

One thing that's happened to me is I've been around a long time and I've played a lot of villains and so forth. I think it had to do with, well one thing is that I looked younger than I was for a long time. Now I think I'm suddenly starting to play people's father.

My career seems to have worked out OK, especially since I turned 40. I've always had a character part, mind you - I've never played the princess. But if you're used to doing that, it must be soul-destroying to hit 40 and suddenly find there's nothing for you to do.

I think right after 'Up in the Air' everyone wanted me to play the girl from 'Up in the Air,' and it took a little while for people to think of me as an actress from a film that they liked instead of just that character.

So I did that for a long time in my career, and I waited for parts to play myself just physically down a little bit. But I do feel like I'm at a place in my career now where I don't necessarily fret about that too much anymore.

It's not so much that I'd like to play a raunchy character, but I would like to play someone my own age. I'm always playing down, but I guess it's good because it means I've got a longer life in my acting career.

I've been doing my job for a long time and I never really thought about being an actress or being anything like that. I was always a bit scared as well because of the thing about models becoming an actress and all that. I just never really took it seriously.

I'm looking forward to playing the meatier roles you get in your 30s. The early 20s can be a hard time for an actress - it's always bombshell or romantic lead. The good stuff you can really sink your teeth into comes later.

As an actor, you always have to reinvent yourself or you end up in the gutter somewhere. It's my job to always change people's minds. I've known that for a long time and I've had to do it.

You know, I was on 'Cheers' for eight years, and I couldn't get another job, and I thought, 'I'm going to be Woody Boyd forever.' Which is not bad, but I really thought I was capable of more.

In school I was always being cast as the clown. And then I did 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose,' and once people hear you scream, they can't un-hear it. But I don't mean to say that I've been typecast, either.

Directors have been trying to get me to do comedy for a long time, ever since 'One Eight Seven.'

When someone gets closely related to a character they play on TV, it's very hard to break that mold and go on to do something else.

I started out in the 1970s doing the Wife, the Bimbo, and the Ditz, and if I somehow get a serious role, they all wanna know the same thing: When are you going back to comedy?

Literally, my first audition after 'The Life Aquatic' was for the 'Criminal Minds' pilot.

I was playing a lot of bigger, sort-of-comedic characters in slightly heightened realities, and it had been so fun and fulfilling for a long time. But it got to a point where I just felt like I didn't have that in me anymore.

Every actor starts out saying, 'I can play anything in the world: I'm only 25, but I can be a man 70 years old. I'll put on a gray wig and do it.' But nobody hires you for that. You have to play yourself on the screen.

The only reason I ever thought about retiring from the front part of the camera as opposed to the back is sometimes you think, "How many roles are there for someone my age?"

I can understand everybody associates me with Karen, but beyond that, I think after time passes and a few years go by, that sort of becomes a non-issue. That character is far - I mean really, all the characters I've played are pretty far away from what I'm really like.

When you get lucky, as I did getting to work on a series of amazing films, one of the drawbacks career-wise is that the image of you at 10 or 12 or whatever is burned into people's minds for a long time.

The problem with the film industry is that once one starts out as a villain, subsequent offers are those of similar roles.

I have no hesitation in taking up more acting assignments if good roles come.

It is hard as an actor when you are typecast at a really young age and come out of that pigeonhole thing.