Angela Lansbury Quotes

Let's face facts, this is visual medium, there's a very high premium put on people who are good-looking. But the minute you rely on that you get yourself in trouble. You certainly don't make a career out of that anymore as an actor.

Hollywood is driven by beautiful faces. Always has been.

I don't want to be famous as a movie star and have the whole world love me, I want to be a creative actress.

People figure because I'm blonde and was a model, I just waltzed into Los Angeles and got major roles in major films.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

When I read for 'Girls,' I was like, 'The script says 'Handsome Carpenter,' so someone else is going to get the part. They'll have someone handsome, not me.'

I don't think many people can say they've been the lead in a Spielberg film and still been able to live their normal life that they had before.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

I've never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind. Apart from the beauty of looks and figure, which I cannot claim to have, there's just a particular kind of ordinary-Joe quality that a film star needs to have.

The way it works in Hollywood is that if you're hot it doesn't matter if you're right for the part or not, you're just offered it.

If I were very handsome, maybe I'd have been an actor.

But I've lost parts because of my looks. I auditioned to star with Richard Dreyfuss in 'The Buddy System.' The producers said no one would believe he would leave me for another woman. They just couldn't see me with him.

Directors are not worried about casting beautiful women, but they are not sure that they want to cast great-looking men. My looks have prevented people from seeing my work.

I never had any desire to be a film actor. I never thought I was the good-looking movie type, which I assumed they wanted.

It's funny because I was offered film parts the first week after 'The Office' went out. I was sent a script, and I said, 'Who's the lead?' They said, 'We want you to be.' And I said: 'Well, who's going to go and see that? You want John Cusack.'

I couldn't be a conventional commercial actor without being a star-kid. That kind of a big film needs a certain mounting, a little paraphernalia around you. And nobody would give me that.

My oomph factor helped me enter B-town. I have a naturally gifted body.

There never were any roles for my kind of acting. That's the story of my life.

I know that people get cast based on how they look in Hollywood.

To be successful in Bollywood, one needs a certain body type.

If you're not good looking, you're considered a good actor, you know what I mean?

I've never understood the notion that actors and actresses should look great on-screen just because they're on-screen. That doesn't make sense to me.

No matter how beautiful actors are, it is not easy to look drop-dead gorgeous in every shot in a commercial film. To carry yourself as if you are the diva, it is not an easy job.

I don't think I need to do a big-ticket film to be considered a big actress.

Sometimes I feel I'm being animated, but it comes off differently. Unfortunately, I was cursed with these sleepy eyes.