Character stereotypes Quotes

I watched a lot of Douglas Fairbanks movies. He always played the same role with a mustache. Zorro had a mustache. The Musketeer had a mustache. Tarzan had a mustache.

It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree.

It's weird, because usually if you're British and you go to America you play baddies; but I play naughty people here and goodies in America.

To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.

I don't like to do what I call 'the grunters' - a character who sits at a table and grunts and young people make fun of. I turn a lot of those down.

Priests and pastors are probably the most stereotyped characters in film and television, and the reason why, I think, is that most people don't know one. Most writers who work in Hollywood don't know any.

Pilot season after pilot season, I read the same part: the wife who rolls her eyes at her somewhat immature husband that she still loves. Literally.

I had been thinking for a while about how bored and tired I was of playing straight-down-the-middle everymanish characters that have what I call white guy problems. And I missed playing characters who lacked dignity and more importantly, lacked social skills.

It's rather fun writing a female spy, because she has so much more kit. Bond never carried a hair dryer or a makeup bag. And he certainly didn't wear an uplift bra.

Am I being typecast as a horrible person? I don't know. I don't think so. But if it happens, I'd rather get to play that, because there's nothing fun about being sweet. Sweet can be so boring, so I'd be happy staying away from that.

I didn't want to take the typical action roles that everybody was expecting me to take, because I was going to get typecast as that guy, the action guy who didn't have anything really bright to say and who just kicked in doors and punched people in the face and shot people and drove off in a cool car. I didn't want to be that guy.

Humans are complex, and I think in entertainment in general, it's very easy to put people in boxes.

It's so funny, I've done so many projects where I've been interrogated. I guest starred on almost every hour drama, and I'm always the guy they think is the bad guy but then they find out is not.

When people think girl adventurers, they tend to think of a spunky, plucky tom-boy with a chip on her shoulder. I'm not saying that this makes for a dull character, but I think other types of adventurous girls exist. It's easy to fall into well-established tropes, believing that the tropes of a genre define the genre itself.

If you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well.

I knew what my scripts would say before I opened them: 'Enter Conchita.' I played handmaidens, Indian squaws, and Mexican dancers.

I never went to school wanting to play cute characters or girly characters.

I think that sometimes when they see me in a movie they expect me to be something nasty. I mean, I play a lot of villains and you show up and they think maybe... That's why it's good to defy expectations sometimes.

If you put a much older woman in 'Doctor Who,' they can identify with it. I think it's quite an interesting concept, and if you remember things like 'Grimm's Fairytales,' the older woman is often the villainess, often the terrifying figure - why I do not know, but often she is. I think it's an idea to be exploited.

I couldn't deal with playing a character who rides motorcycles and has a leather jacket and is a tough kid, y'know?

Once you're sort of pigeonholed into something, it's quite difficult to get out of it. I have no aversion to playing a gay character again, but it would definitely have to be the right role.

I think there's a tendency for actors like myself, and I don't mean to generalize myself, but I've played 'men's men,' if you will, characters that are simmering rage and calculated. There's a trend not to play anything that is opposed to that.

Why should every single character be an honor student who goes around helping others and never doing anything wrong? Is that like the rule or something?

I hate it when the mother is just the mother in movies.