role versatility Quotes

I would love to play a negative guy, play the villain. It is always interesting to have shades to your character.

At the time the quickest way to establish yourself as an American was to throw a little bit of tap into your dance - even when it wasn't called for. But what also helped me was the fact that I was dancing in roles that I had played.

There are some similarities, I think, with all the characters I play. I'm not a guy who sees the desire to transform with each part; I'm not a piece of clay.

One of the great advantages of my time spent in movies and in basically every role possible, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, that I've gotten to see all these different ways that people work and the way movies are constructed from the inside out, from beginning to end.

I would loved to be called a character actor.

I don't ever want to get boxed in, playing the same characters, over and over again. That's why I prefer features over television.

I can play very annoying girl, very lost girl and then all the things in the spectrum between.

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.

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.

There is more for women in terms of character roles now. Judi Dench and Maggie Smith have constantly changed over the years and challenged themselves with different roles. That's impressive.

One woman who I think is great is Vidya Balan: her casting in 'The Dirty Picture' was very exciting. Let's break new grounds; let's think beyond the usual. Why can't a woman who plays a mother also play a lover, or why a lover can't play a villain?

I've never tried to reach a certain demographic of an audience or try to say, 'OK, now I'm going to do this type of film to transition myself into more adult roles.' Or a romantic hero. Or whatever it may be - you know what I mean?

I'm not just considered a former child star. I'm not considered a black actress. I'm not considered an actress. I've done roles that were written for men. First and foremost is God: I definitely believe in Him having kind of mapped out what my destiny was going to be.

Thanks to a film like 'Baahubali' in my career, directors have the faith in me that I can play all kinds of characters, and I also have faith in me now that I can also do all kinds of roles, and I am doing that.

I have played characters where I haven't been absorbed - you know, what I call a typical film leading man role where you just have to look gorgeous and be attractive and charming. It bores me. I like a bit of dirt, a bit of sand in the oyster.

I'm doing whatever my team needs me to be. Whether it's play hard, screen-and-rolling, ducking in, whatever the team needs me to do to be successful, that's all that I care about.

Being an actor, the less people know about my personal life, the more open-minded they can be about each role I play.

I'm an actor. I have to play weird characters, quirky characters, strange characters, sometimes characters I don't understand.

There are a lot of stereotypes to be broken which I think a lot of us are doing. What I do is, as soon as people try to pin me down to one kind of part, I'll play a very different kind of role, so it explodes that stereotype.

Every role that I have taken on has demanded some kind of emotional range. I really, really would love to do a comedy, but that opportunity really hasn't opened up.

I want to just be able to act and be like the girl next door or the cute babysitter or the busy mom who's fun or who knows, maybe something super dramatic, somebody who's really insecure and angry.

You don't do characters that are the same as you, otherwise why bother to act?

The good and wonderful thing about my whole career is that I've always felt that the audience, if I do it well, will track wherever I go, whether it's President or a lawyer or bad guy or good. All I have to do is execute the material enough where they buy into it. I've had the great luxury of the audiences accepting that.

I was afraid that I'd be typecast as the token firang. That happened initially. Now, I am acting in 'Noises Off' and 'Menagerie,' where all of us are playing British and American characters. That makes me feel better.

You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.