'The Last Seduction,' 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'While You Were Sleeping' did a lot to get me noticed for bigger roles.
I think I have so much more to accomplish in this world of acting. There are many different types of characters I want to play. I want to keep making people laugh, and I want to explore dramatic roles as well.
I look for roles that allow me to immerse in different worlds, immerse in worlds that are different from mine. Then, when you finish a film, you're a different person. I look for that. I look to be impacted, to be transformed, changed by my roles. That's why I do this.
If you're a classical actor, every Shakespearean part you play, you then say, 'McKellen did it this way,' and, 'Jacobi did it this way.' There's a whole list of Oliviers and people, whether you play Hamlet or Richard II or Richard III, any of those roles. And I found that a bit when I did 'La Cage.' It didn't bother me one bit.
Only heroes get stereotyped. As they do the same kind of roles again and again.
I've had really a great choice of roles that have been very different from one another. And I think I kind of set out to do that when I began my career - to aim to never play the same thing twice.
I want to keep playing strong female roles. I don't mean superheroes, but women who are really alive.
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.
I don't know if I've ever played a character who's close to me. There have been some elements of myself in different roles. Sometimes, I show one side of myself and then completely conceal the other.
My attitude goes back to my childhood. I used to audition for theatrical roles, and you can't stand out in a room full of ambitious eight-year-old girls by acting the wallflower. I realised then that I couldn't do things half-heartedly.
Often, the roles I'm offered in England are melancholic women who are filled with regret for the past, regret for their fading beauty.
We have a generation of black actors playing leading roles on film and TV - Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor - which is great and is breaking the mould.
In 1998, the acting roles suddenly bottomed out. I was no longer getting scripts; even my agent stopped calling. When I finally got him on the phone to ask him what was going on, he paused, then said: 'Well, Christine, you're 45.' I got rid of him.
I want what's mine. I see other actors who are doing very interesting roles, and I just want to continue to do things that are interesting, and things that people will go see in theaters.
I love doing comedy, and that's the thing I will always go back to, really, but I'd love to have the freedom to do sort of 'meaty' roles but also have the freedom to do the sort of films I want to make, like what Woody Allen does. You forget he's funny because you're so gripped by the story, but they still make you laugh.
At drama school, I always picked the really evil roles. It's a great way to deal with your everyday emotions.
I don't want to build any image for myself. I don't want people to say, 'He does only a certain type of role.' I don't want only to be the hero of the story. An actor's weakness is the different roles that he can't do. But I am keen to grab only those roles as I am here to challenge myself.
The performances that I love are ones like Gena Rowlands in 'A Woman Under the Influence,' where women are allowed to be messy and imperfect. It's that kind of woman that has always inspired me to seek roles that are a little out of the box. I just haven't always had the opportunity to do them.
I have actually lost a couple of roles - film roles - because a director or producer thought I looked too much like George Costanza, and I could not get out of that box.
I'm drawn to roles that have real substance, that aren't just the victim or the teenage girl or the girlfriend.
We don't get offered roles because of who we are but because of what we delivered in the past.
There's talk of the lack of roles for older women. It's so tough and it's soul-destroying what some female actors do to their faces to try and keep producers happy.
As an actor, I have to be fulfilled in the roles that I play; it has to be a journey for me to learn something or involve myself.
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.
When dogs fulfill their roles they are ecstatically happy.
Most good roles are written for young men. We are fixated on youth. So however much people say there is nothing wrong with being bald, the reality is once the hair is gone, you might not get the parts.
I try to stay consciously away from the roles of the girl who throws herself at the leading man, because I've done it a lot and I want to move on. I ticked that box.
My father is definitely not the kind of guy who'd place his children in key roles within his organization if he didn't think we could surpass the expectations he had for us.
I'm used to working really hard to get a role. I was always auditioning and talking my way into roles.
I haven't been offered a lot of comedy. In theater, I've done quite a bit of comedy or dramas that included a lot of funny stuff. But in my TV work, those aren't the roles that I've been offered.
I don't feel typecast almost at all, and it could just be because I'm insensitive, but I doubt it. I think most of my roles I've gotten have very little to do with my ethnicity. I don't feel that's a limiting factor for my career.
Guest roles are how you get initiated into the industry. It's fun. Over the course of a few years you realise you've done many shows. You get a chance to prove yourself, and that's how you get jobs because of people who have worked with you in the past and trust you.
At the drop of a hat, people will say there are no roles for women after 40. It's there with a bunch of other rules I'm not interested in.
I've been quite lucky in that the roles that I've been able to play are all kind of outsiders. And, you know, I belong to so many places and belong to none of them at the same time, so there's this sense of displacement - I very much understand what it is to not fit in or belong somewhere.
Your big movie stars who've been in blockbusters generating a lot of dollars are looking for the meatier, substantive roles that they think will make the awards season.
People always ask me, 'Why so many historical dramas?' Because those are the best roles I get to play, and I get to play heroes in those roles.
