Acting Choices Quotes

I seek a diverse spectrum of roles. If I just was in a large-budget feature for a younger audience, then I want to find a smaller, more character-driven piece that might be for a more mature audience. Or if I'm playing a goofier character, then maybe I want to go play a serious, psychopathic character. But at the same time, it's usually a case-by-case basis where I'm judging the merit of a role by the script I'm given, and it usually has less to do with the larger framework and more to do with how the part personally appeals to me in that moment.

Being an indie queen, people think I have all these choices. Like I've just been sitting around waiting for the best indie film that I deem acceptable.

I've seen many actors go awry by making the wrong choices early on.

I would rather do three or four small parts every year as opposed to some of the lower-hanging fruit that might get my name above the title.

I'm basically an actress, not a comedienne, and if something comes along that appeals to me, I'll do it.

A while ago, I did a television adaptation of 'Bleak House,' and the character I played, as far as I was concerned, had no redeeming features whatsoever. I wasn't about to try to find any; I didn't need to.

I feel I should never do passive characters. They don't work for me.

I didn't change my voice for 'The Boondocks.'

My agent knows what I'm looking for. And I'm also looking for a new agent, too, so I'm putting it out there. Again, I'm not going to turn down every role, because there is no bad role, really. It's all what you bring to the role, but that traditional, 'Stand here and open a rope,' I'm not doing it.

I've seen other actresses refuse to be ugly. Even if the story line calls for it or the character calls for it, they just can't go there for vanity's sake, and they don't want to be perceived in an ugly way. I was like, 'Nah, I wanna go for this.'

When I was starting out, doing guest spots on TV, and even commercials, I would go in with a whole crazy wardrobe and some terrible accent. Obviously, I was doing too much. If you bring too much flavor to it, it's absurd. There's something to just being spontaneous.

I want to aspire to something like what Denzel Washington does, which is try to find scripts written for white actors - or Jodie Foster, who reads scripts for male actors.

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

I had no desire to be a star. I wanted to be a character actress and be able to do all kinds of parts and work on a lot of things. That was my unconscious choice. I wanted to be an undercover actress.

I can be a teddy bear, but more people tend to see me as the other side of the coin, and that has to do with casting, more Iago than Hamlet. But I don't play villains; I play people doing the right thing for the circumstances and time.

I don't believe a role can be written keeping in mind some actor. Even if such roles exist, I don't pick them because I generally choose roles that I think will suit my image.

People assumed that I wasn't open to doing TV, probably because I was doing a film and reality shows. I have become choosy and want to take up substantial roles.

I have always accepted films based on what my role is. Of course, I do look at who is playing the lead opposite me, the producer and the director.

I've stayed away from doing 'urban film' because I just don't relate to the characters. I'm not going to take a role because I happen to have the same skin color.

I don't do method acting. If I play a farmer, I'm not gonna spend 3 weeks on a chicken farm. That's a bit too much for me.

I have tried to make decisions to work with great directors, with good scripts, and that makes the pickings real slim.

When I first did theatre, I was always doing comedies; it was always my first love. But it wasn't what I was picked for at first, for films and TV.

In the theater, you didn't have any marks. Your instincts in rehearsal told you what the blocking was. On film, they reversed it. They decided ahead of time what your instincts were, before you even arrived.

It would drive me crazy if I picked roles with the goal of being a leading man. You never know what you're getting into when you sign onto a project, and more times than not, the characters that are close to the leading man are more interesting and more fun to play.

I have made decisions based from purely an actor's point of view.