When you're brown and Indian, you get offered a lot of doctor roles.
There was a solid year and a half, perhaps two years, after making 'Temple Grandin,' when I didn't do anything. I just didn't have much patience for roles that were silly, or light, or inconsequential.
My mom was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School, in 1946. She had leadership roles in the law, in government and the corporate world. She was a great role model in that she felt anything was possible.
There aren't that many great female roles in Shakespeare - none that I'd be desperate to play.
You know sometimes it's not the bigger roles that give you the most satisfaction, yeah?
I started out my career as a screenwriter and quickly discovered that adhering to a script isn't always the best way to make a film. You have to take into consideration the nuances of the characters and what the actors bring to their roles.
In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making.
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.
I know people who prepare their roles in such a way that they technically look ahead and memorize their gestures, and then they stick to it. Those that are technically proficient enough can make it seem natural, but they do that and don't really take in what other people are doing.
I'm not particularly fond of playing villains. I do want to be a working actor, and I've had to look at what was offered to me, what roles I could get, and what I could do with them. Even though I'm not drawn to putting those kinds of darker characters out there, I think it's an interesting challenge.
Women are prepared to run for office. They're prepared to show up. Oh yeah, women have big roles to play, and they have stepped up to the plate already.
You can't say that we need to give women more roles, and then when we do, say that they're only there because men want to look at them.
The social and legal discrimination that relegates hundreds of women to subordinate or marginal economic roles has a huge aggregate cost.
Not a lot of people make that transition from child actor to bigger, better roles.
If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn't be very many roles for me to play.
My main aim has always been to do good quality films with roles that have some substance. With Power and Beauty there were loads of things that I liked about the movie, which made me opt for it.
My first four roles were all nice guys, Raggedy Man being one of them.
In any film, there are 10 male roles for 1 female role, especially in the action films. They're heavy with the guys.
We thought we'd write a good script for women, giving them the fun roles that generally men get.
The essence of my work, and of me, is the softer side of a strong woman, and that goes into a number of different roles.
My job is to play many different roles with all sorts of different backgrounds and orientations.
My child has changed things for me. Lately, I really wish there were greater roles for women. I think I see it in a different way now. I look at my little girl and I don't want her to think that all she has to be is pretty and quiet.
I don't know what the future holds. I just try to do roles that I haven't done before.
I think that one of my favorite movie roles has been a film that I did with Jason Statham that was out last year called 'Safe.' I played the main bad guy in that.
It doesn't come easily to me, comedy. It's definitely not my strong suit. I'm probably more suited for drama and dramatic roles, but I certainly would love to be in quirky and fun movies.
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.
It's fun playing two roles. The roles provide a wonderful range of emotions. Stuart is childlike and sensitive. Adam is ruthless, outrageous. He's flamboyant. He does the unexpected.
There is no roles. No one is keeping any roles. The drummer is also answering everybody and everything. So it is a constant conversation and communication between musicians on an extremely high level with extremely valuable material, motifs, and melodies.
I definitely see myself continuing to transition into more acting roles. I'll always be a coach. I'm always going to have a training center, always going to work with guys that are looking for some input and want help. I love commentating, and that's something I can always go back to and enjoy doing.
We did many of our own stunts. We had our hands full. In fact, the roles were physically demanding.
The greatest impediments to changes in our traditional roles seem to lie not in the visible world of conscious intent, but in the murky realm of the unconscious mind.
Because acting was my only professional outlet, I put a ton of pressure on the roles that I did. I overstepped my bounds, I tried to control things that were out of my purview as an actor and in some cases even tried to direct my scenes because I felt I knew how they should run rather than trust the director.
I think we're struggling with trying to redefine various positions at this point in history. To allow freedom for women, freedom for men, freedom from those sharply defined gender roles.
I like doing films and I wish that I could do more but I still have to audition. I don't get offered starring roles in movies even though I've written and starred in a movie.
It's very interesting because as an actor, you play a litany of different roles, but to play both of them within the same day multiple times, in quick successions, it's different and sort of a really rare opportunity that I was initially terrified by and a little bit daunted by.
The actors that I admire are able to step into so many different roles.
