Quotes & Sayings About Playing Many Roles

Playing Aung San Suu Kyi was a journey in itself. She represents many things for many people and for many reasons. Although I have played many important roles in my life, I can say that this role has been a journey of self-realisation. — Michelle Yeoh

I worked, long ago, in New York City, in construction, like many young men of the Mohawk Nation. I found that whites were often like us, and I could not hate them one at a time. But they do not know the earth or love it. They do not speak from the heart, usually. They do not act from the heart. They are more like the actors on the movie screen. They play roles. And their leaders are not like our leaders. They are not chosen for virtue, but for their skill at playing roles. Whites have told me this, in plain words. They do not trust their leaders, and yet they follow them. When we do not trust a leader, he is finished. Then, also, the leaders of the whites have too much power. It is bad for a man to be obeyed too often. But the worst thing is what I have said about the heart. Their leaders have lost it and they have lost mercy. They speak from somewhere else. They act from somewhere else. But from where? Like you, I do not know. It is, I think, a kind of insanity. — Robert Anton Wilson

I didn't understand that playing roles in any relationship is false and will inevitably lead to the relationship's collapse. No one can be any one thing all the time. — Portia De Rossi

It may seem that we have multiple realities - because we're capable of playing many different roles in our life. — Art Hochberg

Never say never - and I certainly don't judge anyone who does it. But most of the characters I play are going through some kind of emotional turmoil, so my job requires me to have expression. If my face was froze, what right do I have to play that part? All the women who haven't done anything to their faces are still able to play great roles. And some of the ones who have done something have messed it up- they look freakish. Anyway, for me it's about playing women with rich lives - and the longer the life, the deeper the wrinkles. — Naomi Watts

The breakdown of mummies and daddies was an important part of lesbian relationships in the Bagatelle ... For some of us, however, role-playing reflected all the depreciating attitudes toward women which we loathed in straight society. It was the rejection of these roles that had drawn us to 'the life' in the first place. Instinctively, without particular theory or political position or dialectic, we recognized oppression as oppression, no matter where it came from.
But those lesbians who had carved some niche in the pretend world of dominance/subordination rejected what they called our 'confused' lifestyle, and they were in the majority. — Audre Lorde

Like actors taking a role in a play. We wear our human faces and harbor our dramas and fantasies, but it's the same individuals playing the parts, as the play starts anew on a different stage, with different faces and forms. If it all goes well, a figure from the crowd joins the stage for the plays that follow, and the roles are refined. — Wildbow

There is no need to change my image. I like my image, and the audience likes it, too. I am very comfortable with the kind of roles I do, and as I am not doing the same character or playing myself. I explore my characters; I don't brood over my broody image. — Randeep Hooda

I love the action that I'm able to do. I grew up in Maine, outdoors and playing with the boys and shooting skeet. I have my girly side, too. But, I do like playing the strong female roles, especially now with something as simple as Twitter, where you've got young women following you. — Rachel Nichols

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. — Hank Azaria

I don't care whether it's a chance meeting or playing a role that you thought was totally wrong but you did it anyway. It will often turn out to be the thing that will lead you to the role which is sublime. — Angela Lansbury

What I see increasingly is that companies are playing political roles. We should actually have our research and our laws map that. — Zephyr Teachout

With theatre, we all agree to suspend our disbelief about so many things, but not about race. It's totally OK to have one actor playing five roles - people are willing to believe that. But they won't believe it if there's a black or an Asian kid who has white parents. What does that say about us? — David Henry Hwang

I am the least qualified person to comment on anyone playing the role of Batman since I so terribly destroyed the part, — George Clooney

I've been fortunate to play many different types of characters thus far. However, I really enjoy playing roles that are different than who I am personally. You can have these small fantasy worlds where you can be people you would otherwise never get to be: a doctor, a lawyer, a ruthless business woman. — Gina Holden

Japanese gamers aren't really into action games right now. They're into role-playing or strategy games with a lot of stats, but action titles are still really popular across the US and Europe. — Hideo Kojima

For me, it doesn't matter whether it's a comedy, a Western or horror. As long as you've got a good story to tell, the genre almost doesn't matter. As an actor playing the role, it's all rooted in reality. — Patrick Wilson

I've been playing these schoolgirl roles in all my movies. Every time I went to the set, it felt like I was going to school. — Chiaki Kuriyama

I am a woman pretending to be a man, pretending to be this ship's first officer, pretending to be a pirate, pretending to be innocent of murder ... I begin to lose track of all the roles I am playing. — Mercedes Lackey

I love playing all kinds of roles. I hope it doesn't sound too pretentious, but I always feel human nature is like a piano, and there are 88 keys, and there are some white keys and some black keys, and each character is a different chord on the piano. Basically, I hope that in the course of my life, I will have played all 88 keys. So, I'll have played heroes and villains and princes and kings and warriors and beggars and thieves and lovers and fathers and wizards and all of those things. That is why I'm an actor ... I love studying people. — Tom Hiddleston

I like playing an array of different roles. From the fun, comedic roles to the serious roles. It's always fun to play the role that either closely represents your own personality or the role that is completely opposite of yourself. — Manika

I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes. — Damian Lewis

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles. — Don Cheadle

I stay away from the elf roles; I stay away from playing a leprechaun. All the roles I try to do are something that an average actor would do. — Verne Troyer

When I started, I was a theater actress, and there were roles that I couldn't imagine not playing, like Rosalind in 'As You Like It.' I used to think I would die if I could play that. But then I started doing movies, and I had children, and I moved to Los Angeles. And now I kind of can't remember what those roles would be. — Annette Bening

I love playing serious! That's a relief for me. It means something. It sounds dead corny and cheesy, but on a day-to-day basis, you can't just let loose and cry. So as an actress playing those gritty roles, I can play it quite decently. — Lauren Socha

Historically, actors have been made very famous for roles that were something that was far - - Richard Widmark comes to mind (playing Tommy Udo in "Kiss of Death") or something like that, where you do some famous role and everybody imitates you for the rest of your life. But obviously it's much more fun to play something you're not than it is to play something you are. — Clint Eastwood

As a kid, I just was a contract player at MGM Studios. They put me into goodness knows how many different roles.Some of them were wonderful and some of them were very just distasteful and awful because I was playing out of my age range and I was thoroughly uncomfortable, let's put it that way. So it took me many years to find my acting feet. — Angela Lansbury

He assumed a manner that could be called circular irony. Everything he said, he said in quotes, with an artificial, exaggerated emphasis, and with the elocution of someone playing a succession of improvised, ad hoc roles. Therefore, whoever did not know him long and well was confounded, for it seemed impossible ever to tell what the man thought true and what false, and when he was speaking seriously and when he was merely amusing himself with words. — Stanislaw Lem

I don't need the money after 11 years on 'Frasier,' and there aren't that many great roles onstage left for somebody my age. I'm more interested in playing those roles than I am in playing bit parts in movies. — John Mahoney

I specifically remember doing the musical 'Sweet Charity' at Stagedoor. I was playing Vittorio Vidal, which is a very funny part, and some other small roles. I couldn't really sing that well, but there were so many fun bits, and I just remember the tremendous adrenaline rush I felt from being onstage and hearing the audience enjoying it. — Sebastian Stan

All my life, I have taken inventory at intervals. For example, when I became a movie actor and suddenly I had to deal with fame, money and playing so many roles, I lost myself. I said, 'Who am I?' And I wrote my first book to deal with that, 'The Ragman's Son.' — Kirk Douglas

I grew up without the rose-tinted look at the profession many of my friends had, but I've been very lucky playing major roles in 'An Ideal Husband', 'Arcadia' and 'The Memory of Water'. — Samantha Bond

By playing these games about "arbitrary" gender roles, we have not succeeded in outlawing masculinity, but we have robbed it of much of its vocabulary. There are not very many acceptable ways to speak "masculine" anymore. We are all in denial, and the results are not pretty. — Douglas Wilson

She had told Kazan that she was bored with the roles she was playing because so many of them had been basically the same kind of empty-headed characterization. She wanted nothing ore than to challenge herself with more complex parts
and also wanted others to think of her as being more than a caricature.
...
Anytime she had an opportunity to broaden her mind, she wanted to take advantage of it. — J. Randy Taraborrelli

My first job when I got my equity card was acting in 14 plays back-to-back. Playing that many roles, you look for ways of differentiating the characters physically, which goes hand in hand with understanding them psychologically. — Andy Serkis

I mean, in many ways, you know, I felt very connected to Ian (Dury) on, on a lot of levels. I mean, politically, & sort of, socially, our, kind of, social backgrounds are quite similar in many ways, as well as our kind of artistic endeavors. So there were many, many things that sort of chimed in for me, and kind of made me feel very instinctive about playing him, and, and although, there was sort of a certain amount of impression involved, actually, there's a lot of myself in the role. — Andy Serkis

I've been lucky to learn by playing all kinds of roles and watching all kinds of really good cinematographers, actors, and directors for many years before people were even aware of me in terms of audience. — Viggo Mortensen

Oh, how wonderful and rich and
strange life can be when you stop playing out the roles that your parents and their friends wrote out
for you. — John Cheever

I came to the United States to see what would happen in 2000 after working for 20 years in Australia and asked my agent to look out for the nasty roles because I'd become famous for playing the nicest man in Australia. So I wanted to play bad guys. — Alan Dale

I've spent all my life playing roles that illustrious people have played before me. — Geraldine McEwan

Playing good girls in the 30s was difficult, when the fad was to play bad girls. Actually I think playing bad girls is a bore; I have always had more luck with good girl roles because they require more from an actress. — Olivia De Havilland

Actresses talking about characters they've played often use the phrase "strong woman", which kind of irks me. Firstly, the description appears to be reserved for two kinds of female: the gun-toting chick in tiny-vest-and-shorts combo, or the tough-talking businesswoman who secretly longs for a man to bring out her softer side. So obviously, our idea of strength is pretty narrow and one-dimensional. Secondly, why isn't Brad Pitt ever asked about how much he enjoys playing a "strong man"? Is it automatically assumed that men's roles will be complex and interesting? — Rosie Blythe

I just love the whole art form of acting, of being in front of a camera and playing different things. Not that I would ever say I'm the greatest actor in the world, but I am capable of playing different kinds of roles that emotionally I could get into. — Andrew Dice Clay

With our Reserve and Guard units playing increasingly important roles in the war on terror and in Iraq, it is unacceptable to make them jump through any unnecessary hurdles. — Pat Roberts

George feels flattered and excited ... He can't resist slipping into the role Kenny so temptingly offers him. — Christopher Isherwood

It's what I've always wanted to do and each part you play gets you closer and closer to the roles that you dreamed of playing. — Michael Eklund

I think the best roles are in dark movies. It's roles that aren't you. It's fun playing someone that's not me. If I'm playing me all the time, then it's not acting. It's just being yourself. — Chloe Grace Moretz

I think audiences are a lot more intelligent than what we give them credit for and understand that an actor is playing a role and that doesn't mean he can't play different types of roles. — Cillian Murphy

I started here in Australia, playing a lot of roles but never the lead guy in shows here. I always tended to play the rougher guy, the criminal who gets caught or shot by the cops. Or the boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks. — Sullivan Stapleton

More and more good actors are now transmigrating into the videogame space and playing roles there because it's where my generation of kids get stories from. — Andy Serkis

When I have to play the same role every day, I have the flexibility to play the character in so many different ways. It's almost like playing five different roles. — Simon Baker

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

I love playing darker roles, or roles with meat. I feel very comfortable in that environment. I don't know why. I don't know what that says about me. I really enjoy doing complicated characters. — Shailene Woodley

I think I fully commit myself to any role to the extent to which I can. In other words there's some roles that maybe it's just not there, in other words on the page. You know, I mean your job is you need to play the governor and that's what you do. I mean I'm not going to stay up all night if I'm playing a functional role. And I've played a couple of functional roles. And so I'm not going to do anything other, look he's a functional guy. He says hey mister, you forgot your hat. — Billy Bob Thornton

Some actors wear their roles like clothing," he said. "No matter what part they're playing, you can always easily see who it is beneath the costume."
"It's how drag queens do women, darling," volunteered the elegant Miss X.
[ ... ]
"The really amazing actors strip themselves down to nothing-they make themselves a blank slate, and you can never guess what they're going to look like or act like in their next film because they completely transform themselves."
"It's how transsexuals do women, darling," opined Doris Fish with an arched eyebrow in my direction. — Kate Bornstein

If you come from a normal family, you immediately start playing the role of a boy, a girl a man or a woman, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that those are only roles, limited roles, at that. — John Lone

I don't play the role of a villain, really, but I like playing anti-hero kind of roles. I like characters where there's conflict, drama, and more personal investment than just being heroes. — Randeep Hooda

Those are the kinds of roles you can really sink your teeth into. Characters with an edge. When you're playing someone who's sort of seedy, there's less limitation, there's so much space you can travel. There's room to move in. — Matt Dillon

I was the daughter of my father's wife. I spoke in a trembly voice. I became pale, ill, and more thin. I let myself become a wounded animal. I let the hunter come to me and turn me into a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my chi , the spirit that caused me so much pain.
Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit. — Amy Tan

The only people playing the roles of classic rock stars are hip-hop artists, now. Kanye's stage persona, and the way he approaches making albums, and the way he wants to be better than everyone else? That's reminiscent of Freddie Mercury. That's reminiscent of the Beatles. — Jack Antonoff

Why were my visitors so secretive, hiding themselves behind my consciousness. I could only conclude that they were using me and did not want me to know why ... What if they were dangerous? Then I was terribly dangerous because I was playing a role in acclimatizing people to them. — Whitley Strieber

Really, I was such a late bloomer, I really didn't learn how to be me until I was in my late '40s, which is when I started playing roles that were closer to me. — Ron Perlman

I have enough drama in my career, and then always playing dramatic roles and storylines ... I like to lead a very low profile. — Jessica Lowndes