In the contract days, the big studios groomed us to play particular roles and we would stay with the image they gave us and insisted on.
I get to do interesting roles and make a living.
I get a lot of single mum roles - 'It's a Free World' turned out well, so people thought, 'She can be a single mum, Kierston can do that. Or live in a council house - she can do that.'
You can't be perceived as 'the black actress who doesn't get the same kind of roles as the white actress.' You gotta run the same race. You gotta give the same quality of performances. You gotta have the same standard of excellence, even though people know that you're coming to the race in a deficit. That's just what life is about.
I hope to land roles where my presence is carried on throughout the film. I'm looking forward to taking on a role with a complicated backstory and yet someone who refuses to lose sight of hope. I know that it will happen someday.
I'm a warrior when it comes to pursuing roles.
The life of an actor is very hard irrespective of the continent you are in. It is doubly hard when you are only eligible for minority roles.
I don't want to play only Latin women. I want to have roles in English.
And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men's.
I play a huge variety of roles.
I happen to be one who believes very strongly that state and local governments have their proper roles.
I've been told I'm too good looking for certain roles, but that's okay, it just motivates me to go deeper.
Career is important, but nothing really supersedes my roles as a mother.
When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.
I don't think I'm the best-looking actress around. I'm not Katrina Kaif; she is stunningly beautiful. There are some roles that might need a beautiful girl, and there would be a doubt in a director's mind whether he should cast me. But that perception will change with time. I'd like to believe actresses look better with experience.
I didn't even dance at my high school prom, and I have turned down so many movie roles because I didn't know how to dance.
As we got older, we grew comfortable in roles that met our parents' expectations. Nora was the smart one. Delia, the comedian. I was the pretty, obedient one. And Amy was the adventurous mischief-maker.
I love changing my roles. I think the most important thing that I can do for myself is to keep changing the genres, the periods, the characters themselves.
I'm actually a very dark person, so I really want to get into some really dark roles, maybe some thrillers. I've never done one of those, so I think I'd really want to get into that, but definitely something that would get lots of people talking.
I decided I should go after the roles I like, that I am inspired by, and then, if I am having a good time, chances are that people will like watching you.
I have got one of those faces that change every day: you can dress me up, make me look vampy and then make me look 12 years old. But don't all women do this thing? We all take on these roles.
In the West, audiences think I am a stereotyped action star, or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong, I did a lot of comedy, many dramatic films, and most of all, romantic roles, lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero.
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.
There just aren't that many Jesus roles around.
America's liberal arts universities have long been safe zones for leftist thinking, protected ivory towers for the pseudo-elite who earn their livings writing papers nobody reads about gender roles in the poetry of Maya Angelou.
I've probably played more non-police roles than people realize.
I think real life reflects your movies. In your life, you pick stuff that influences what movie roles you wanna pick. I think if you've got an interesting life, you wanna do interesting movies about interesting things.
I guess you should approach the roles differently when they're actual people who have been, this is the difference. Getting the accent exact, or the hair exact is less important in a situation like this.
I was lucky enough to have a plethora of types of roles before and during the horror movie part of my career.
Yeah, I've always been accused of having a sense of mischief and I'm very flattered that you say you can see it in the roles I play, because I think that's important, even if I do play intense characters, like especially Christine Cagney.
I'm so bored of reading scripts with these wonderfully complex male roles, yet the woman character just sits on the bed waiting for him to come home.
There is a sense of call to take leadership roles. You're serving people and submitting to God as best you can.
I always had acting work when I needed it. I think that is why, when I watch films or TV series in America, I find in small roles or in supporting roles really amazing faces, where I have the feeling these people have actually had a life outside of acting. I find it almost a pity that I've never done anything else.
I did flirt with the idea of going to law school, but not for long. Maybe I'll play a lawyer one day - the beauty of acting is that you can try on so many different roles without having to commit to them in real life.
In subsequent years the groups you named had important roles in educating people about the real issues in Washington and Raleigh, and within the Democratic Party.
It's still not easy to find roles that offer more complex images of women.
