Small Roles Quotes & Sayings

Families and societies are small and large versions of one another. Both are made up of people who have to work together, whose destinies are tied up with one another. Each features the components of a relationship: leaders perform roles relative to the led, the young to the old, and male to female; and each is involved with the process of decision-making, use of authority, and the seeking of common goals. — Virginia Satir

I want to be in the small percentage of women who don't settle for conventional roles. — Zoe Saldana

All I will tell you is that I play a small role in someone's happily ever after. — Patty Duke

There are shows, a lot of small cable shows like Breaking Bad, where in the general population nobody watches them really, but everybody in Los Angeles in the industry watches them, and to get a small role on a show like that actually, in some respects, advances your career more than having a huge hit role on a genre show because they are somehow dismissed as a secondary market in this industry — Misha Collins

Remember this, my darling - remember this. What you achieve on earth is only a small part of the deal. If there's a secret I could whisper, and that you could keep, it would be that it's all inside you already. Every single thing you need. Earth is just a stopover. A kind of game. Make it a star game. If I could give you a gift, it would be to teach you how to stay free inside that game, to find the glory inside yourself, beyond the roles and the drama, so you can dance the dance of the game of life with a little more rhythm, a little more abandon, a little more shaking-those-hips. — Annie Kagan

In the past we have always assumed that the external world around us has represented reality, however confusing or uncertain, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes, ambitions, represented the realm of fantasy, and the imagination. These roles, it seems to me, have been reversed. The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction - conversely, the one small node of reality left to us is inside of our own heads. — J.G. Ballard

I began with small roles in successful movies like 'No Country For Old Men' by the Coen brothers; but it was 'The Last Exorcism' that changed my life: with what I earned, I left Texas and moved to Los Angeles. — Caleb Landry Jones

I never acted in anything I've directed but I have produced a number of films and I have acted in some of the movies I've produced. Usually with first time filmmakers and pushing a move forward I have played a small role but never the lead. — Forest Whitaker

An actor rides in a bus or railroad train; he sees a movement and applies it to a new role. The whole garment in which the actor hides himself is made of small externals of observation fitted to his conception of a role. — Eleanor Robson Belmont

We must accept all the implications of our human inheritance, one of the most important of which is the small scope of biologically transmitted behavior, and the enormous role of the cultural process of the transmission of tradition. — Ruth Benedict

I don't want to make a habit of just playing small roles, because I really enjoy the process of being part of a film and staying on it for the length of time that everybody else is as well. — Guy Pearce

All the roles are for boys. The girls' roles are either small or all the same. There's just nothing interesting. — Christina Ricci

They were childless - Dan Needham suggested that their sexual roles might be so "reversed" as to make childbearing difficult - and their attendance at Little League games was marked by a constant disapproval of the sport: that little girls were not allowed to play in the Little League was an example of sexual stereotyping that exercised the Dowlings' humorlessness and fury. Should they have a daughter, they warned, she would play in the Little League. They were a couple with a theme - sadly, it was their only theme, and a small theme, and they overplayed it, but a young couple with such a burning mission was quite interesting to the generally slow, accepting types who were more typical in Gravesend. Mr. Chickering, our fat coach and manager, lived in dread of the day the Dowlings might produce a daughter. Mr. Chickering was of the old school - he believed that only boys should play baseball, and that girls should watch them play, or else play soft-ball. — John Irving

As I see it, in other words, God acts in history and in your and my brief histories not as the puppeteer who sets the scene and works the strings but rather as the great director who no matter what role fate casts us in conveys to us somehow from the wings, if we have our eyes, ears, hearts open and sometimes even if we don't, how we can play those roles in a way to enrich and ennoble and hallow the whole vast drama of things including our own small but crucial parts in it. — Frederick Buechner

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

To be honest, I don't see myself acting forever. I just can't imagine myself being a 70-year-old man fighting for roles. I would love to do small parts in my friends' movies or things that I'm directing myself. I do envision myself behind the camera as I get a little bit older. — Dave Franco

Lifestyles and sex roles are passed from parents to children as inexorably as blue eyes or small feet. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

I think the kind of films and roles I do takes a whole year ... I think it is justified. At some point, we have to come to that place where we are equally paid. It is a small step ... we are headed to that direction. — Kangana Ranaut

Many of us are trying to lead multiple lives: child, mother, wife, lover, star, giving small doses of oxygen to each and imploding under the weight of so many competing roles. The women I have written in Bombshells struggle - sometimes hilariously, sometimes tragically - to bridge the chasm between the wilderness of their inner worlds and the demands of their outer worlds. And humour, in the end, is our saviour. — Joanna Murray-Smith

In the second half of life, the questions become: 'Who, apart from the roles you play, are you? What does the soul ask of you? Do you have the wherewithal to shift course, to deconstruct your painfully achieved identity, risking failure, marginalization and loss of collective approval?' No small task. — James Hollis

Essentially, I'm a small-part actor who's been lucky enough to play leading roles for most of his life. — Alec Guinness

I like flawed characters very much. A lot of times I get asked to do parts that are kind of small but key - three-scene roles that are three kick-ass scenes. Growing up, watching as many movies as I did, I was always into character actors like that. — Bobby Cannavale

Why do a crappy film role when you can do a meaty stage role? and ... I'm not small and curvy and I don't fit the prerequiste for small, passive, sexy chicks. — Nicole Kidman

Better to have a small role in God's story than to cast yourself as the lead in your own fiction. — LeCrae

One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city
as I once did for a couple of years. — Edward Abbey

There are roles that are terrifying because they're large or you may feel that they're out of your line, but I'm never terrified once the actual work begins. Once you begin rehearsal, then it's small building blocks. It's solving little problems one at a time. — Michael Emerson

I like directors that give their composer a juicy role in their films. Some films have a small, minor role for music, some have a larger role. — Cliff Martinez

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

We used to laugh at our small selves, saying that I was a bad girl trying to be good and that he was a good boy trying to be bad. Through the years these roles would reverse, then reverse again, until we came to accept our dual natures. We contained opposing principles, light and dark. — Patti Smith

I find it hard to do small roles sometimes. — Robert Taylor

If theory is the role of the architect, then such beautiful proofs are the role of the craftsman. Of course, as with the great renaissance artists, such roles are not mutually exclusive. A great cathedral has both structural impressiveness and delicate detail. A great mathematical theory should similarly be beautiful on both large and small scales. — Michael Atiyah

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

I moved to the east coast when everybody else was going to the west coast. I (then) chased it back toward the west coast. I built my career up by doing small roles (which led) to principal roles and getting bumped into main character roles. — Drew Waters

I'm just open to doing all different kinds of movies. I have a movie called Scout coming out and it's a coming of age story. [] I have a very small role in it, but it was really fun to make and really light, but I do want darker roles. — Shelley Hennig

One of the interesting things is, the most gifted people, the biggest people, have no problem taking small roles. — Woody Allen

Pundits, opponents, and disillusioned supporters would blame Obama for squandering the promise of his administration. Certainly he and his administration made their share of mistakes. But it is hard to think of another president who had to face the kind of guerrilla warfare waged against him almost as soon as he took office. A small number of people with massive resources orchestrated, manipulated, and exploited the economic unrest for their own purposes. They used tax-deductible donations to fund a movement to slash taxes on the rich and cut regulations on their own businesses. While they paid focus groups and seasoned operatives to frame these self-serving policies as matters of dire public interest, they hid their roles behind laws meant to protect the anonymity of philanthropists, leaving more folksy figures like Santelli to carry the message. — Jane Mayer

You've heard the phrase 'There are no small roles, just small actors?' Well, I kind of disagree. There are small roles, but when you get a lot of them in a row, you can become a pretty successful actress, and that's what I've done. — Judy Greer

For the world as a whole, the CIA has now become the bogey that Communism has been for America. Wherever there is trouble, violence, suffering, tragedy, the rest of us are now quick to suspect the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia about the CIA is, no doubt, as fantastically excessive as America's phobia about world Communism; but in this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the world's eyes. Today America has become the world's nightmare. When an uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable team can flaunt the historic and traditional codes of civilization by disregarding the honor and sovereignty of other countries large and small, by intervening in the internal affairs of other countries for reasons real and contrived, the rest of the world does fear for its own welfare and for the future of this country. — L. Fletcher Prouty

After Darwin, God's role changes from being the designer of all creatures great and small to being the designer of the laws of nature, from which natural selection can unfold, to being perhaps just the chooser of the laws. By the time God's role has been so diminished, he becomes a bit like a constitutional monarch, presiding ceremonially but not having any more work to do. That's a place for God if it makes people comfortable to keep God as the presider over the universe. I suppose that is satisfying for many. — Daniel Dennett

One of the roles I hold really close to my heart is a small 'under-five' role I did on 'The Young and the Restless.' I think I did about four episodes and it meant so much to me, simply because it was my mom's all-time favorite soap. — Emayatzy Corinealdi

Today I am more convinced than ever. Conceptual integrity is central to product quality. Having a system architect is the most important single step toward conceptual integrity. These principles are by no means limited to software systems, but to the design of any complex construct, whether a computer, an airplane, a Strategic Defense Initiative, a Global Positioning System. After teaching a software engineering laboratory more than 20 times, I came to insist that student teams as small as four people choose a manager and a separate architect. Defining distinct roles in such small teams may be a little extreme, but I have observed it to work well and to contribute to design success even for small teams. — Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

There was a huge movement that led up to [gay marriage legilization], and I played a small role in the great scheme of things. But it was really a privilege to get to do it. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

Small movie, small role, giant movie, giant role. Work is work. You've got to tell the truth and show up. — Michael Keaton

I would hate to be thrust into the middle of a big film and not deliver. There's young actors and they're put into these central roles and they're commanding armies - but they can't quite pull it off. I'd much rather do it in small steps and build it from there. — Paddy Considine

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. — G.K. Chesterton

It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen. — Brendan Gleeson

I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films. — Kate Winslet

So the only things I was being allowed to audition for were small roles in comedies. It broke my heart. No one would see me for anything else. I knew, in order to open up my career, I had to leave or that's all I would ever be given. — Khandi Alexander

It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom. — Bela Lugosi

New technologies make it possible for even the mass marketer to assume the role of a small proprietor, doing business again wit individuals, one at a time. — Don Peppers

People know me because I play the monsters, but I'm most recognized from the small roles in which they see my face. None of that stuff really bothers me. Whether I'm recognized in or out of a costume isn't a kind of pressure I put myself through anymore. — Kevin Peter Hall