Roles are extremely finite, but human beings are infinite.
I'd like to do a little bit of everything. I think the only thing I can't do is a British accent, so that's out. No Shakespeare for me. Unless it's like one of those modern-day remakes.
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.
Throughout my career I've played a lot of parts that might've been played by a man. They're human roles rather than specifically men or women. I've never been as hooked into that as a lot of women are, you know, like, 'There aren't enough roles for women.' There aren't necessarily a lot of good roles for anybody.
The life of an actor is very hard irrespective of the continent you are in. It is doubly hard when you are only eligible for minority roles.
I realize that no one is going to come to me and ask me to be Julius Caesar or a romantic lead, but I think I'm a certain type of guy who looks a certain way, and that's just the reality of things.
If you're going to be born ugly and be an actor - the least they can do is let you play Lincoln.
When you're playing a supporting character, you don't really have a lot of control of the quality of the film.
Could you ever call me a 'leading man?' Not really. It's not that I don't want leading man roles, but there's only so many, and they want Tom Hanks, not me.
There are two sides to being pigeonholed. There's, 'Oh, no, I'm going to be Chandler for the rest of my life,' but there's also the fact that getting to play Chandler opened up doors to me. It's now my job to find things that shake it up a little bit.
I read so many scripts, and it's not really exciting to just be the girlfriend.
If I'm going to be honest about it, I think men get to do this sort of thing all the time. You look at countless performances by great male actors who get to play the whole gamut of human emotions. Women aren't regularly allowed to do that, and I don't know why people are so frightened by it.
I don't really worry about being typecast much. I mean, everyone in Hollywood is typecast to a degree.
I am happy being able to play roles with people my age because once you do something really mature there is no turning back.
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?"
Then she had been a fiancee, a young wife, and a mother, and she had discovered that these words were far too small ever to contain the experience.
I played a Siamese girl from Thailand. I played an Arabian girl. I did a lot of American Indians. I never, ever was able to do a part without assuming some kind of accent.
In a way, I feel that film roles haven't given me the opportunity to show I have a sense of humor.
I was very surprised that for a while I could only get cast as straight. It was that way for a few years.
I suppose, when you start up in acting, you hope to be given challenges, and you always have dreams about the things you could do and couldn't do, but normally we get pigeon-holed a little bit, as we go on in our careers.
An actor should be ready to play any role within reason. For example, I think the most ridiculous thing for me to do would be to try and play Shakespeare.
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.
As you're growing up, it's odd, because directors don't expect you to grow up. They think you'll be young forever, but as an actor, there is an awkward period when you're too young for old or too old for young, and it can be an odd time.
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.
Personally, I don't want to live with limitations. If there comes a time where I am dying to play Juliet or Macbeth, I want to make those avenues for myself.
