Top 40 Ingenue Quotes

I wasn’t some sort of ingenue. I always saw myself as a lifer in this industry, and working as an actor on ‘Wonder Years’ was a first act.

I spend a lot of time at my son’s school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies.

I wasn’t, like, pretty enough to be the ingenue; I wasn’t ‘character’ enough to be the goofball sidekick. I’m kind of ethnically ambiguous.

I need space to grow and get old and be a human being. I don’t want to be trapped in your ingenue bubble. And I don’t agree with it either, by the way.

In my fantasies, I always wanted to play the ingenue, but in reality, in my bones, I am so used to playing the grandmother that I don’t feel safe or even sure that I can do it.

I think of myself more as a character actor than that ingenue leading lady, who started out something like Michelle Pfeiffer, or Jessica Lange. I’m a bit quirkier than that.

To be honest with you, most of the time the ingenue roles are a little bit dull and boring, in my opinion.

I’ve never wanted to be the ingenue. Now that I’m getting into my forties, I think my time as a woman has arrived; I think I might have a new moment in my career. I have that drive left – just for a little while.

I’ve never been interested in playing the boring ingenue. I always wonder: Who’s her weird friend? I like the oddballs.

I feel like, in my 20s, I was putting my hair in a ponytail and pinching my cheeks and raising my voice an octave. So I feel more comfortable being a woman than I did being a young ingenue.

I can’t be an ingenue forever, and I wouldn’t want to be.

Not that it was Twiggy’s fault, but the ubiquity of her image created a sense in young women that to be stylish meant to be skinny, flat-chested with an ingenue face and straight hair.

When you say you’re 40, you can’t call yourself an ingenue any more.

I couldn’t be an ingenue today, because the business has changed. I remember when you could dress for a premiere just by putting on a cute top. Now you have to be perfect and fabulous in every way, or you’re ridiculed.

I don’t know what I am. I guess you can call me a character actor in the sense that I’ll never be an ingenue. You know, that’s over. My shot was missed. I take a normal person and make them more of a character. I don’t know what that would be called.

I played the ingenue, of course, when I was young – but even with those, I tried to make interesting choices and mess them up a little bit – make them layered and complicated and not all stereotypes.

My early acting was ingenue stuff.

I suppose that there might have been leading men who were put off from casting me as the ingenue because I was taller than they were, but I’ve no idea that this ever happened. When I did ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ opposite Mark Rylance in the West End, we used the difference in our heights as part of their relationship.

I was never an ingenue, thank God; always character.

I was never one of those actors who believed, ‘I’m so gonna be an ingenue.’ I already knew that wasn’t gonna happen, and I decided not to torture myself with it.

Onstage, I was never the ingenue.

I was never the ingenue, so hopefully that’ll make it easier to age and still work. I know a lot of actors who are really dissatisfied with where they’re at even though some of them are huge stars and I feel like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re at the top.’ Something interesting will come. It always does. I have faith.

I couldn’t get any of the ingenue roles when younger because at 5 feet 9 inches with a deep voice I was always too… genue. My career has completely happened since I was 29.

I guess I’ve never really had a great desire to be a leading lady, or be seen as an ingenue.

I’ve always wanted my characters to have more dimension and realistic cores than the ingenue material often provides. It’s been a challenge.

I was never an ingenue. I’ve traveled the globe, I’ve backpacked through South America, I’ve done conservation work in Africa. I was never the girl who knew nothing of the world.

For me to want to be an actor was an improbable idea. I wasn’t beautiful or pretty in any conventional way. I wasn’t an ingenue at 22. But I was always certain of it and certain of its power. I felt the power when I went to the theater at 9, 10, 12 and 14.

When I studied at Juilliard, I did a lot of pushups and became this diesel machine. I was really big and was like, ‘This is not a good look for an ingenue.’

I love playing an ingenue, and I love doing revivals, and I will continue to do that.

Ageism is interesting for me because I’ve been playing someone in my 40s since I was 20 or so, but I have experienced it. I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t had to play the ingenue and feel that slip away.

I know the fact I’ve worked continuously since drama school means I fit a stereotype – the ingenue.

I was never an ingenue. I’ve always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.

I would not want to go back to playing the ingenue.

As a female actress – I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager – I often got approached with the ingenue roles: naive and wide-eyed and childlike.

I saw I wasn’t an ingenue like Debbie Reynolds.

I was never, ever the ingenue. The young, innocent lead was just not me.

Frankly, there is no shorter shelf life other than that of a child actor, than that of the ingenue.

I’m certainly not 10 pounds away from being an ingenue! Of course I would love to lose 10 pounds. I would never lie and say I don’t think about it, but I don’t think about it on a daily basis. I love my body. I don’t like wearing clothes that hide or cover it. I love wearing costumes that show it off.

I’m trying to show I’m a trained actress – I can transform myself into different characters. I’m not just an ingenue.

I never played an ingenue.