Roles Quotes

We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.

I believe that every role that I have done this far has had quality and content. My roles have been very demanding and every role has been a challenge and a learning experience that has helped me mature as an actress.

I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.

I'm attracted to those kinds of roles that could be good or could be bad, and you just don't know.

You could say I'm a character actress. Or maybe a character actress who does peculiar, interesting lead roles. Does that make sense?

I had my moments of being humiliated, and then I had moments of doing something humiliating. I'm glad I lived out both roles.

I've had to fight for roles and I've lost a hundred roles, but 'Smoking' and 'Smith' were phone calls. That's the dream.

It's just interesting that people don't really know about the roles that I play that are darker. I kind of do a huge blend of really big light things but also really dark indie things, and it just sort of happens to work out that way.

The choices of roles I made had to do with educating and entertaining. And as a result I found myself working only every two or three years.

If I were to wait only for roles that clarify my racial makeup, I'd be waiting for a very, very long time.

I'm not a dark person at all, so those roles are the most challenging. I don't think I'm necessarily drawn to dark things. It just seems to work out that way.

Career is important, but nothing really supersedes my roles as a mother.

Some of the best roles are for women in these independent, smaller movies.

Corporate Hollywood thinks I'm a geek to go back and do theater. They don't understand why I don't want to be a movie star, why I'm not pursuing Mel Gibson's roles.

I think I've always just been kinda geeky and got to play some mildly appealing roles.

I do intelligent roles. I don't want to be labeled as doing silly movies. I'm more mature than kids my age because I'm constantly surrounded by adults.

The 'Family Ties' role was the first of many gay roles that I've ended up playing. I remember that I made them laugh, and it made me feel good, 'cause it really cracked them up.

I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.

That's double-edged: it's amazing that they're bringing me in and showing people new ideas, and at the same time it's a little hard because seventy percent of the time or even higher I'm not going to get those roles.

For most of my career, I've played roles that were written for other actresses.

I happen to be one who believes very strongly that state and local governments have their proper roles.

I want to have roles in English.

In New York I was always offered the hot, sexy roles. But in L.A. I was offered the plain, dowdy roles. It says a lot about the difference between the coasts.

We did many of our own stunts. We had our hands full. In fact, the roles were physically demanding.

I read the script, and I knew it was a good part. It was written for a white actor. That's what I'm up against - I have to try to make roles happen for me that aren't written black.

I've always been into films. I've been offered lots of films but they've always been these very stereotypical roles. They wanted me to play some gangster or street guy, or pimp, drug addict.

When I was thinking of casting this, I thought, What roles would Sellers be playing now?

As soon as I became proactive in producing my own stuff, I started getting other roles.

I remember feeling that. I couldn't do, nor did I want to do, the kinds of roles I'd been doing.

People were confused by me, and at first I was auditioning a lot for the crazy characters or the victim, someone who'd been attacked. Which is great, because usually those are the best acting roles.