Role Complexity Quotes

I've always been attracted to more intense and darker roles, but I think there is complexity and darkness in comedies as well.

I'm attracted to playing people who aren't necessarily straightforward.

I loved doing 'Bad Moms.' I loved doing 'We're the Millers.' But now that I've tasted complexity, it doesn't matter what the genre is - it would be really hard to go back.

Women in their 40s have gone through quite a few different things, and so the roles are going to reflect that. People say, 'Oh, it's done by 40,' and now everyone knows it's not. I actually feel like the roles are a lot more interesting.

Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep - I love actresses that are strong and fragile at the same time. They bring complexity to their roles.

It's fun playing the villain now and again; villains are so simple, and you don't have to worry about the audience loving you.

It would drive me crazy if I picked roles with the goal of being a leading man. You never know what you're getting into when you sign onto a project, and more times than not, the characters that are close to the leading man are more interesting and more fun to play.

Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I enjoy anything where you get to flex your acting muscles, you get to really go for it.

When you go into the realm of a double role, you have to take it to another level to make it believable.

I wish writing was a talent that I had. I've tried. Unfortunately, I'm just not talented in the writing department. But, if I was, I would just write complicated roles for women because there's a lack of them.

It's tougher for women than men in Hollywood, period, if you ask me. As with most professions, women have generally not found equality with men when it comes to income and influence. There aren't as many female directors, producers, and writers, which translates to fewer complex roles for women.

First of all, I would shoot myself if I ever had to play straight-forward characters that really don't have much of a past. Maybe it's just that I'm not a good enough actor to have to embellish, but I like having these really, really rich roles to play.

The more complicated the character, the better I am. It's the one-dimensional crap that I had to do for years that drove me crazy.

I liked 'Scream of the Banshee' because it was a real challenge. I thought, 'How am I going to pull off this character?' But, I also thought, 'Oh, man, I'm going to go for it.' He's got all the defects of character that an actor loves to play. So, I had a really great time.

I always hope for roles that have some depth and that I can get my teeth into and that will challenge me, in some way.

I get to play some zany, multilayered, very complex individuals.

I wouldn't be able to tackle a character like Rosalee on 'Underground' without having tackled the many characters I've played before.

I hope to land roles where my presence is carried on throughout the film. I'm looking forward to taking on a role with a complicated backstory and yet someone who refuses to lose sight of hope. I know that it will happen someday.

I continue to be known as a guy that plays really complex, three-dimensional characters.

I just look at the character and the arc of the character, and see if it's going to be challenging. We always want to challenge ourselves. That's the biggest thing that I look at. Is this going to be a challenge? Is this going to be something that I can try my best to create, that no one could see anyone else do?

I'm drawn to projects where I play these really complicated characters, but also where I can have some type of influence on affecting what we see as societal norms.

I seem to have been cast several several times to do it. I think in this one, Phoenix is not purely evil. She was in the comic books at some point but the way the writers created her or we always talked about her, was that she was torn with her powers taking over and trying to control them at the same time. It was challenging to play which made it interesting for me to play this character.

I'm attracted to those kinds of roles that could be good or could be bad, and you just don't know.

Just coming to terms with the fact that I got to play April Wheeler [Revolutionary Road] and Hanna Schmitz [The Reader] in one year, let alone in my lifetime. I'm very, very aware of how rare that is as an opportunity for any one person. I can't tell you how much I've been able to take away from these experiences creatively. I really, really learned so much about acting, about myself... all of those things. It's difficult to talk about the actor's process without sounding like an arrogant asshole but they really were very challenging.

Every role requires its own set of tools, and I think, because of that, it is very hard to ever feel totally prepared or totally able.