Tabu Quotes

There are so many female roles - particularly for young women - that are just somebody's girlfriend or somebody's daughter, or that are accessories to the main story rather than being three-dimensional characters.

I'm so sick of hearing how there's no strong roles for women. I don't care about strong roles. I just want to see women who are characters! A nun, a serial killer, a housewife, as long as there's some depth there.

I want to keep playing strong female roles. I don't mean superheroes, but women who are really alive.

The performances that I love are ones like Gena Rowlands in 'A Woman Under the Influence,' where women are allowed to be messy and imperfect. It's that kind of woman that has always inspired me to seek roles that are a little out of the box. I just haven't always had the opportunity to do them.

Just because we are women doesn't mean the only roles we can play are that of the finger-shaking girlfriend.

Women just make interesting characters, especially when you're working against cliches.

The biggest thing about 'Lady Macbeth' is the fact that people are so surprised that this woman is so amazing, and really, it shouldn't be so amazing that this incredible character is on our screens.

I like playing strong female parts.

It's hard because I seek out strong female roles. I turn down a lot of stuff, not because it's not good, but because I don't want to play certain types of characters. I don't like to just play the pretty girl.

I don't write women who are weak or simpering.

I would love to see women be able to be powerful, complex, smart, opinionated and taken seriously, even if they are beautiful. Even more, I would love to see women held to different standards, other than the superficial ones that we're held to.

I think the roles in television are better for women right now. At this point, I don't want to continue doing the same things I've been doing in film because it's very limited.

I've always tried to be conscious of how I represent women in my work. They don't have to be good or strong women, but they have to be complex.

I'm interested in playing lots of different complex women.

Where is it written that a smart woman can't also be stacked?

I loved Veronica right off the bat. She was so strong and I think it is so important because there are so few shows that portray women, especially young women, as being strong and being able to stand up for themselves.

A lot of the scripts I read and the characters I get are 'the girl' in romantic films, and I don't know how comfortable I am, or the world is, with me being that.

I get really excited every time there's a female character who is really strong because a lot of females in film are really soft.

It's still not easy to find roles that offer more complex images of women.

We're feminists. We're doing something that only guys are expected to do and doin' it right! At our concerts we'll do one hard-core rap song and then do one where we'll be real sexy.

I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It's like people see Hackers and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I'd like to play strong women who are also very feminine.

There aren't enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the 'poor heartbroken girl.'

My whole drive to be an actor was finding roles that I really believed represent modern women, the struggles that we deal with. Women who are strong and capable and in control of their own lives.

That's always been part of my goal - to show the dark side of women. Men write about bad men all the time, and they're called antiheroes.

I think there is an enormous appetite for great roles for women.