I had already played a lead on Broadway before I ever did a film. I had had three, four seasons of stock with good, fat parts, good supporting and leading parts. And I had done, oh, God, over 400 live TV shows.
I am the actor that I am. I do what I do. I've been a 'leading man' playing romantic leads for a long time now.
It's good to be able to be a leading lady, to be a romantic lead, to play opposite people who are talented, and charismatic and stuff.
I just pick the best roles that are left over, and they usually aren't the heterosexual, leading-man, non-drug-addict parts. And once you get into doing them, people know you do them.
I took my acting very seriously. I did over 40 films, and naturally, some of them were called B-movies because the woman was at the top of the billing. Women couldn't star in their own movies.
I mean, there's obviously only one Leo [DiCaprio] but I look at guys like Mark Wahlberg and Tom Cruise and think I'd like to have that type of career... that would be really great if I could have that.
That's something I would love to do - play leading roles and really hold it on my own in those leading roles.
Essentially, I'm a small-part actor who's been lucky enough to play leading roles for most of his life.
Good films and good performances will help you go further in your career. You can't get too far by just choosing leading lady roles.
Why can't I ever play a nice, normal, salt-of-the-earth type? Is there something I should know? It's fun to play villains and character roles, of course - but I'm sure it's also fun to be a really big star and play the lead in everything, where all you have to do is show up and not blink.
I'm not really that interested in going back to playing small supporting roles.
When you get into your 40s, the roles do tend to drop off, and I've seen it happening to friends of mine. Hopefully it is improving, and there are female TV executives now who are championing women of all ages in leading roles. But I'm not counting on it.
M.G.M. never really gave me a break. They loaned me out for leading roles but cast me in programme pictures.
When I walked through the gate, Universal quit building actors. All of a sudden, I was doing leading roles. I knew I was a tyro, but they told me to shut up and act.
I can get a better role in TV and work more constantly than I can waiting around for my friends in Canada to call me every four years - which they do - and I go up there and play a leading role.
I don't get offered leading parts. I suppose I've become a kind of character actor or sideman. I think it had to do with probably in the '90s, I refused so many leading roles that they gave up on me, or I just became unpopular, or I became old. All those reasons.
I've always thought of myself as a character actor, even though I've played some leading-man roles.
All the roles I play, I don't see any of my roles in films that they're typically leading men.
I thought, 'I've been doing this for 16 years professionally. I have a window where I want to play leading parts.'
I think the world is ready for people of color to take on more heroic and leading roles, and not always be the sidekick, the nemesis or any sort of stereotype of what a person of color can play typically in a Hollywood picture.
Really good leading roles are few and far between, and there is so much competition because there are so many fantastic actresses in this country.
Any ensemble - they didn't call it "the all-male Expendables," for example. But it's Hollywood's fault that people say that, because there have been so few movies that have allowed women to have these leading roles, so that's Hollywood's fault.
I acted three times with Fred MacMurray, three times with Martin and Lewis, four times with Rock Hudson. Three times with Glenn Ford.
I don't want to make a habit of just playing small roles, because I really enjoy the process of being part of a film and staying on it for the length of time that everybody else is as well.
I think every leading man wants to be a character actor, and every character actor wants to be a leading man.
