Type Casting Quotes

Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand that with my R&B roots, I am more than a jazz singer. So I get pigeonholed.

If I were to wait only for roles that clarify my racial makeup, I'd be waiting for a very, very long time.

I believe the important part of directing really is finding the right people for the right roles. Sometimes you go for what's expected, and sometimes you go against type because you think that'll really bring something different to the movie.

I had started acting when I was 7, and I was always wrong. I would always get to the very end [of the audition], but I wasn't a perfect package of one thing. I wasn't a cliche, and it always worked against me. I wasn't pretty enough to play the popular girl, I wasn't mousy enough to be the mousy girl. Then there was a TV show that Toni Collette was starring in. And when a role to play a girl who was struggling with identity came, I thought: "Oh, this is what I was supposed to do. Everything's leading up to this moment." I was 18. I was like, "This is it." I didn't get it. And I was devastated.

I'm stunned that people keep asking me to play characters I didn't expect to play.

Not one role that I've played has been written specifically for me.

There was no male vampire type in existence. Someone suggested an actor of the Continental School who could play any type, and mentioned me.

Playing a character for four years, in people's minds, that's who you are.

I've played a lot of very posh, sort of noble or aristocratic English people, which is nothing like what I am, so I feel that there is quite a lot distance there and have played a little bit far away from myself.

Transgender casting is a kind of literalism. It is the same with racial casting. This means that you can now only play Othello if you are black. There is something quite tainted about it. It is a form of racism in itself.

I don't want to only play the leading man for the rest of my career.

Mel will always be Mad Max, and me, I will always be a Number.

If a casting breakdown said 'All-American Type' or 'Lead Role,' I knew they weren't thinking of me.

People forget actors can adapt and change their appearance. In this industry, people sometimes cast to type, or as close to type as possible, but actors are a lot more versatile than you think!

A few years ago, I got cast as a white boy in an off-Broadway play. So not only was it colour-blind, it was gender-blind as well. That would never happen in film.

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.

I've been a soldier, I've been a bunch of little girls, all sorts of roles that I would not have been able to be with on camera context because I just don't look the part.

I went out for a film where they wanted seven brothers and one sister, so I was there for half a day while they were waiting for 'Archie' to read for a boy... I've had drivers come to pick me up in England looking for a blond, blue-eyed Scottish boy.

I believe that we are still hovering around the realm of Asians playing all types of Asians. I do not see that changing any time soon just because there is a limited pool of Asian actors.

I'm just a very fortunate actor who has not been typecast.

If you're cast right you can actually just let yourself go because all your gestures will be right, all your intonations will be right because you just somewhere understand who this person is.

With a face like this, there aren't a lot of lawyers or priest roles coming my way. I've gotta face that was meant for a mug shot and that's what I've been doing for the past thirty years. If I play a cop, it's always a racist cop, or a trigger-happy cop or a crooked cop - but by and large I play cowboys, bikers, and convicts.

I don't want to be stuck to one character. I think that's what can happen when you take on a superhero movie.

I did try to get a few of those teen high-school movies, but they just didn't like me. I guess I wasn't a certain type.

Being a woman, an actor in Hollywood, I know that there are certain parts I won't often get a chance to do.