Russell Johnson Quotes

I came to the United States to see what would happen in 2000 after working for 20 years in Australia and asked my agent to look out for the nasty roles because I'd become famous for playing the nicest man in Australia. So I wanted to play bad guys.

After 'Baby Doll,' I did some Westerns. I would try to do something so far away from 'Baby Doll.'

My first films were comedy, 'Murder By Death,' and 'The Cheap Detective.' But now they won't think of me as a comedian. Now, they think of me as a bad guy, and I can't do comedy.

As an actor, it's a very strange adjustment to start playing the father. I was used to playing a kid my whole life, and then all of a sudden, it's like, boom. I guess when I let my hair go grey, things changed.

People wouldn't hire me for comedies. They would say, 'Oh, he doesn't do comedy,' and now it's really all I do.

There was definitely a moment, a time after 'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle', when I did get offered a lot of women in jeopardy-type roles. But I couldn't do it, physically, I just couldn't. But now I know what I know, I wonder if I should have played the whole fame game a little more.

In school I was always being cast as the clown. And then I did 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose,' and once people hear you scream, they can't un-hear it. But I don't mean to say that I've been typecast, either.

I'm very aware that after you've played Cleopatra, there's not a lot that can top that in this sphere, so it means that I want to almost change the sphere I work in rather completely because I will always be comparing it to Cleopatra.

I give two hoots about being typecast. It's not in my hands.

I think being on 'Weeds,' in general, makes it hard to think of me as Nemo anymore.

I think at this point in my life, I'd like to play more good guys than bad guys.

There's this list on Internet Movie Database that I'm on, and it's called 'Actors with High Body Counts.' I'm always playing the bad guy.

I don't feel I'm playing villains all the time.

I've kind of had to make a career of playing villains. In order to stay employed, I had to figure out how to play bad guys.

Of course, I would like to play the guy next door, but nobody's going to hire me for that kind of role.

Once you do one bad guy, usually all you get offered is bad guys. But I've been able to do different things.

I always wanted to be a filmmaker, but I started acting when I was 9 years old. I looked a certain part that I wasn't, really. I played, you know, a high school jock with a lot of attitude or a spoiled rich kid, and I was neither of those things. I was from a very working-class family in Van Nuys.

First time I ever played a bad guy. I didn't want to do it. I got stuck in bad guys for 13 years after that.

Fortunately and unfortunately, people don't see me as a character actor. They see me as a leading man or nothing, which makes it really hard to get work.

Somehow, someway, you get kind of labeled this guy who was in a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie too many. And Freddie Prinze Jr. - it's not his fault, either - it's just these are the things that happen. I'm not a George Clooney; I don't have a ton of opportunities.

And getting older, what's happening is, I play only mothers.

You know, the blond guy plays the good guy and I play the bad part, the bad guys. Which is a lot of fun. Playing the bad guy is great. And it's the whole British thing. You know, in so many films the bad guy is British. Gary Oldman makes a living doing that.

Before 9/11, I was playing a wide range of characters. I would play a lover, a cop, a father. As long as I could create the illusion of the character, the part was given to me. But after 9/11, something changed. We became the villains, the bad guys. I don't mind to play the bad guy as long as the bad guy has a base.

I keep getting cast as this bad guy, and I don't know why.

Yeah, I had actually tried to stop acting before I made Dead Man Walking.