I have always chosen roles that I believed in - not ones that I thought might further my career.
You should learn to be happy with what you have. Besides, the fact that I'm not a huge star has allowed me to pick and choose the roles I want to do, not the ones some person sitting in a studio office thinks I should do.
On 'Swingtown,' I think that's when I was able to blend the character-slash-leading lady roles, and that's what I'm doing on 'Once Upon a Time' as well. She's a leading lady, but she's also this character.
So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.
For me, choice is the most important thing because I'm going to be an adult actor pretty soon. So I've got to be choosing the right roles now so that by the time I get to that age there will be wide options available.
I am not hungry for roles on TV or in films. I am happy being a social media sensation.
I've always thought of myself as a character actor, even though I've played some leading-man roles.
I think the roles in television are better for women right now. At this point, I don't want to continue doing the same things I've been doing in film because it's very limited.
But when I think of superchicks, I think of the roles, not the variety.
I am very picky with my career. I don't need to do it for the money or the fame. I'm very choosy, which is why I haven't played the typical role that people expect to see from someone of my stature and size, as the mean jock or the preppy. It's very easy to see me like that. That's why I go against it in different roles.
There weren't a lot of action roles growing up - there were a few, maybe, like Wonder Woman, but then it wasn't real action.
I would like to be as fit as I've always been. I've been blessed with good health, I've been blessed with stamina. Particularly for those great classical roles, you need an Olympian stamina. I, fortunately, have that.
I remember feeling that. I couldn't do, nor did I want to do, the kinds of roles I'd been doing.
I like playing the contrasting roles. It what inspires me to act. If I look back on my career I am happy that I have gotten to play a wide variety of different roles, from Mike Dexter, to Van Ray in Fast Lane, to Dr. Cullen to Coop.
Once we increase the proportion of women in technical roles, the challenge is to retain them and ease the transition to senior positions.
Many take the roles home with them and live the part. I'm quite happy to leave mine at the studio and return home as I left: simple old Roger Moore.
I played a real nasty little girl but most of the roles I had up until then were very sweet and very nice.
As actors you're always going to take certain roles that are in your comfort zone and take ones that aren't.
Mattis has been sharply critical of President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Obama's capping of troop numbers and campaign end-dates in theaters of war such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Mattis also appears to be a skeptic of the Obama-era policy of putting women into combat roles.
For me, hour-long drama was always the thing I felt the most comfortable doing, and I've played so many dramatic roles in the theater.
What really ticks me off is how the public figures you automatically become the roles you play. What most people never see is the silly side of me.
Character roles definitely age better than your ingenues. You don't get to keep doing that.
There are a lot of people out there who offer roles to actors because they'll elevate their movie to a place the movie would never reach.
I don't like when actors go around and talk a ton about how they approach their roles, because it's a little like pulling the curtain back on Oz, for me.
Hmm, limelight... No, I'm not Sienna Miller or Angelina Jolie. I'm very lucky and happy, but I still find it very difficult to get good scripts and good roles. It's really a jungle out there.
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.
I always felt that a marriage works best at a farm... where you're together and everybody has clear-cut roles; they have chores, 'you take care of this' and you know. But it's hard.
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.
I'm quite lucky in that at certain angles I look all right, and at others I don't look so good, which enables me to play some leading roles and some stranger, more 'character'-type parts. I wouldn't say I'm the conventional handsome Hollywood leading man.
When I came back to Britain, I realized that I was no longer a very young woman. I had to meet my new consciousness, my new age, with roles that reflected it somewhat.
You have actresses like Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, who have roles specially written for them.
Some of the best roles are for women in these independent, smaller movies.
I have no desire to play most of the roles being offered.
Physical roles give me a chance to learn something new.
I feel so comfortable in an acting role, you know, as an actor. Maybe it's because I came into it late. If anything, I've felt frustrated that I can't carry a film because everything since 'District 9' has been supporting roles.
The transitional period is tough. You can find yourself too old to play high school roles but too young to play the leading man. You have to be quite smart about how you present yourself. Your public image reflects your range.
