Acting Limitations Quotes

I'd like to do a little bit of everything. I think the only thing I can't do is a British accent, so that's out. No Shakespeare for me. Unless it's like one of those modern-day remakes.

I have an accent, I'm limited, I have to play foreign parts - I would love to play American parts but I can't because I have an accent. You are more limited as a foreigner in every area.

I really love being in 'Game of Thrones,' but I don't know if it's my big break.

Commercials are 20 seconds long, so you don't get to experiment with your characters. But in films, you get to try out your acting skills.

I felt like when you're an actor, you don't get to fully creatively express yourself - most of the time, it's not your own writing or direction.

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

To ask a pratfall comedian, a dishes-in-the-face comic like me, to lay back and bring none of that stuff to the script because it doesn't call for it? That's tough.

When actors begin to think, it's time for a change. They are not fitted for it.

There seems to be a weird ceiling to being a stand-up as far as acting.

My talents fall within definite limitations. I am not as versatile an actress as some think.

There were some super-lean years, yeah. I'm six feet four. And I entered into this period all of a sudden when I was too big to play a kid and I was too young to play an adult. Like, I couldn't play the lawyer, but I couldn't play the high school kid anymore.

I played a Siamese girl from Thailand. I played an Arabian girl. I did a lot of American Indians. I never, ever was able to do a part without assuming some kind of accent.

A lot of the time, as an actor, you don't have the freedom to change what your lines are, and they can often be very unnatural or difficult to portray in a real light.

After the Oscar for 'Shampoo,' I had a sense, even as I was walking up to get it, that this was the height of where I was going to go as an actress. And I felt that now was the time, if I wanted a longer life in the arts, that I had to jump from acting to directing.

When I've acted, and it's not been something I've written or have had at least a hand in writing, I do think there is a controlling side of me that is frustrated by that. And I actually don't think that it's a bad thing, because if I'm going to be in movies, in large part they're going to be movies that I write.

I got into [producing] to be part of stories that wouldn't necessarily be right for me as an actor.

Leave me to the thing I love. I love acting. But being called 'the greatest living actress' - a designation not even my mother would sanction - is the opposite of good or valuable or useful. It is a curse for a working actor.

To be totally sincere, I'd surely be a better actor today if I hadn't played Columbo all these years.

I don't really have any limitations for what I want to do, as an actor.

I like to use all of myself, and acting wasn't doing that.

I loved it, but had to forget about acting after elementary school because it was the sort of thing you just didn't do in my rough neighborhood.

It's horrid to be called a Shakespearean actor because that's incredibly limiting, and we love acting. We like telling stories; anything that excites us we want to be a part of. Science fiction is fun, too!

An actor should be ready to play any role within reason. For example, I think the most ridiculous thing for me to do would be to try and play Shakespeare.

I don't want to do 'Hamlet.' I don't want to do Robert Redford roles or Mel Gibson roles or Kevin Costner roles, because I'm not going to be good at them.

I've done network shows. A director will call me and say, 'Do you want to do this with me?' and I'll say, 'Sure,' but I couldn't do it forever because there's no real expression. That's not how people talk.