There are networks and executives who are willing to take risks on vastly different material, and as an actor, there are some really juicy roles to sink your teeth into.
In my roles as Deputy State Treasurer and Special Assistant Attorney General, I strove to make government more responsive, transparent, efficient, and proactive.
I have done films only because my roles were good in them. It has got nothing to do with being associated with any particular camp.
Last week I was in London at an awards show, then I flew home and was in an RV park with my wife and kids in our motorhome, this week I'm in NY doing a charity event, and tomorrow I'll be coaching my daughters soccer practice. I guess the range of roles I play on film stem from the range of roles I play in real life.
There's a terrible truth for many women in the picture business: Aging typically takes its toll and means fewer and less desirable roles.
But I'm attracted to roles where I get to really go in and explore a character.
What happens is things come to you - director, script - and if you respond to it, it's because it's tapping into some part of what's inside you, and different roles tap into different parts.
I try to do as many different roles as the system will allow me. That's the benefit of not being in a giant blockbuster where you're the lead and you get typecast in that kind of role. I am able to slip in or out of a lot of different parts.
I overhaul myself for my roles. Sooner or later, I will get my due.
I'm not some sort of tormented soul looking for an identity in the roles I take. I became an actress because I just love dressing up and playing.
I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.
Good roles are hard to come by, and whether they're a few lines or a lead, you snap 'em up when they come along.
An audience is going to be able to find a little bit of Dorothy in themselves and relate to this woman.: roles like Dorothy Day are so rare in Hollywood.
Playing roles that are intense and damaged has always come more easily to me than doing comedies or lighter stuff - that would be taking a huge risk for me.
I'm in a position now where I can play certain roles and when I get older, I won't be able to. So, I don't have a strategy of trying to grow up too quick, I just want to kind of look at everything.
You don't want to play the same roles or do the same genre.
My passion is doing movies, and as long as I keep doing that, I'll be happy. I want to do movies, fun roles and dramatic ones. I love all of it.
The best roles have risks... and those are the parts I'm interested in.
Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed.
No actor can be a complete artist without trying his/her hand at comic roles.
If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.
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.
You can never be guaranteed good roles because of an award, but I think your profile and net worth as a performer has to do with awards, unfortunately.
It's upsetting that it is such a big deal. I wish it weren't an issue all the time. It's funny that people say it's a departure, because I've been acting since I was a child. I've played three gay roles out of hundreds.
None of my on-screen roles have been outright negative. They have all been grey, and that is how it is in reality, too. None of us are nice and sweet 24/7.
I've been really fortunate to do so many comedies and then so many dramatic roles and then television and movies and stuff like that.
Barack is at a level where he can't - no matter how much he wants to or how much we want him to - he's not going to come take out our garbage, so to speak. He can't be the garbage man and the president. He can't be the mayor and the alderman. He can't fill all those roles. So I always push for local, local activity on the political scene.
I try to stay away from the L.A. scene as much as possible. I feel it helps me to better prepare for my roles if I am not too involved in that whole thing.
There's been a lot of role reversal going on in the band. The roles people have been playing for a long time will always be there, but everybody's willing to try on different outfits.
What we've seen in government for so often is that people have been shady - about their roles, hiding things, not releasing things.
I've refused roles because they're too simplistic.
I want as much as I can to try and explore different roles and different characters; that's important to me to get involved in as many different parts as I can.
I never had trouble getting an agent. I went out and got my first couple roles, and literally within six months I never had to have another job other than acting.
I guess I'm attracted to these off beat roles because my life has been a bit abnormal. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.
The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supraphysical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment.
I wanted to build up a little nest egg and go back to L.A. and choose roles that I wanted to do instead of roles that I had to do to pay the bills.
