Mark Strong Quotes

My career seems to have worked out OK, especially since I turned 40. I've always had a character part, mind you - I've never played the princess. But if you're used to doing that, it must be soul-destroying to hit 40 and suddenly find there's nothing for you to do.

Being typecast is a great thing for an actor. I was considered one of the New York mob actors.

Your basic physical makeup does influence the parts you're offered. If you're big, they cast you either dumb or tough, although there are exceptions. Clint Eastwood and James Arness carved out niches for themselves in Westerns. I just hope I won't be faced with doing 'Li'l Abner' in dinner theater for the rest of my career.

I have about as much control over how I look as the guy who's short and looks more like a character actor - we both have the same drive to be actors and we both have the same drive to assume these different characters, it's just harder for me to get the chance because they look at me and say, 'Oh, he's this type,' and they stamp me.

In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.

In N.Y.C., I auditioned for mostly 'quirky friend' roles. Since casting directors in L.A. lacked a preconceived notion of me, I was able to reinvent my type a bit, which was essential in booking the role of Amanda on 'Ugly Betty.' I don't believe I would have auditioned for that role in N.Y.

If you're a 'character actor,' you get hired to play baddies a lot.

I can now shed the child-actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career, because no one sees me as Dudley.

I thought, 'Oh, acting is going to be great - I get to play different parts.' And then these auditions started coming up for terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, and I'm going, 'Whoa, what's this about?'

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've been getting a lot of science fiction scripts which contained variations on my 'Star Trek' character and I've been turning them down. I strongly feel that the next role I do, I should not be wearing spandex.

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

As a young actor, I played a lot of 'exotic' parts and was stuck with the tag 'sultry.' I had to refuse such parts if I were ever to play anything else. It did the trick, but my agent feared it made me harder to cast.

Any time you're a type, your career's over.

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 started as an actor in the theater playing a lot of character parts, and suddenly, I found myself in this place where it felt like I was getting locked into a kind of a stereotype, and it did bother me.

People were confused by me, and at first I was auditioning a lot for the crazy characters or the victim, someone who'd been attacked. Which is great, because usually those are the best acting roles.

If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn't be very many roles for me to play.

I love when I am not typecast. I've been acting for 50 years. I was such a baby face; I was playing children until I was in my 30s, which frustrated me enormously. Now that I am 65 and getting to play women in their 50s, I am getting paid back for having to play children for so long.

I think definitely people know me from playing creeps and weirdos, and I'm definitely looking to expand my range.

I was meant to be an actor, and I realised that only after my son was born.

I can't get the serious roles. People don't see me that way.

For a while, I thought that I was only going to be cast in Second World War films.

Playing a cop goes a long way. I have a lot of friends who are working as actors, and as soon as I started playing military characters or cops, and not the actual criminal that we're chasing on this show, they all said, 'You actually can have a career now.'

This idea of the world expecting you to remain an ingenue forever - it's a very short shelf life if you're going to commit to that as your career, and I knew that early.