Top 66 Leading Man Quotes

Though I’m considered a leading man, I still consider myself a character actor. Because acting, to me, is creating a character, not playing the same thing all the time.

When they saddle the leading man with violence it makes the characters look weak. If a man is a heroic type he doesn’t have to resort to violence. How many successful men in the world have to settle problems with their fists?

My first Hindi film as a leading man was Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Saaransh,’ which immediately established me as someone who knows the craft.

If I want to be a leading man in a film, box office numbers count because producers have invested money. I see no wrong in that process.

It never occurred to me that I was a leading man until I was 19 years old. I had been acting since I was 10, so that’s nine years and 30 or 40 plays, in school and summer stock, professional theater, too.

I understand what my gift is, which is making people laugh, hopefully. It’s more on that level. I don’t need to be a leading man, I’m fine with that.

In real life, every person is the leading man or woman. We don’t think of ourselves as supporting or character actors.

When I first got out to Hollywood, they were pushing me for sitcoms, and I didn’t really have an interest in them. I wanted to do films and slowly worked that way. And then it became, I guess, this curse of the leading man.

To play the leading man in a ‘Three Stooges’ movie, you’ve got to think funny. Thank God I think funny.

Could you ever call me a ‘leading man?’ Not really. It’s not that I don’t want leading man roles, but there’s only so many, and they want Tom Hanks, not me.

I don’t even think of myself as particularly good looking, and not at all a typical kind of Hollywood leading man sort of actor.

Can I be a leading man? I don’t believe myself to be; I don’t think that I am, but I’m in this place as a performer where I think about how to make things smaller, more subtle.

To be the leading man it’s about the celebrity and the looks, and it’s tough to do that. People who do it great are people like Tom Cruise and Will Smith – they’re built for that. I ain’t. I’m more of a character guy.

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.

I’m a chubby middle-aged white guy with short hair. I think that’s it, really. I kind of have a look. Right now, I’m not fat enough to be the fat friend, but I’m not thin enough to be the leading man, so I look like a cop.

Having a leading man who is actually prettier than you are is quite upsetting.

Although I can be a leading man, you wouldn’t look at me and go, ‘He’s a leading man.’

Fortunately and unfortunately, people don’t see me as a character actor. They see me as a leading man or nothing, which makes it really hard to get work.

The sudden death of the leading man will cause change, making another man leader. Soon, but too late, the young man will attain high office. By land and sea, he will be feared.

I haven’t gotten to do the leading man thing, so I would love to do that!

I haven’t had a chance to play a quiet leading man in a while.

I don’t want to be Mr. Romantic Leading Man. I don’t want to be the Dance Dude. I don’t want to be the Action Guy. If I had to do any one of those all my life, it’d drive me crazy.

An era that I specifically like is sort of late ’50s, early ’60s. I guess mid ’50s, too. I like these types of films that deal with post-WWII America and this more complex leading man that kind of emerges from that.

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they’re not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.

I never really thought of myself as being an action hero or a leading man or any of that. I’m a character actor.

I’d love to talk to Joaquin Phoenix because he’s a very private guy. Also, he’s creating a new kind of sexy leading man. To me, his face is new and might be legendary someday.

I’m not built like a leading man.

I wanted to be a leading man – the black lawyer, the black doctor, the black policeman.

For some reason, I struggle seeing myself as a leading man.

The transitional period is tough. You can find yourself too old to play high school roles but too young to play the leading man. You have to be quite smart about how you present yourself. Your public image reflects your range.

But obviously you don’t want to just be the guy who comes in and sort of spices up every movie. So yeah, definitely moving into more of a leading man role would be great, but on my own terms.

I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I’m a character actor.

I think my wife has always been aware, whatever country we have been in, of my dramatic leading man status; a little too dramatic she would probably say.

Let me put it this way: if I am the leading man of the film, and the film-maker is asking me to support him in a certain aspect so as not to burden the budget of the film, I will do whatever I can to support his vision.

It’s great fun if you get a good piece of writing and you can pretend to be someone else, tell a story that needs to be told, make some kind of connection. I’ve always fancied myself as a leading man, but I really doubt whether anyone else sees me that way.

Really, I prefer not to read my early books. Not that I don’t like them, but I don’t recognize myself anymore, like an old actor watching himself as a young leading man.

I know I may never emerge as a leading man.

Actually, you have to be a little bit in love with your leading man and vice versa. If you’re going to portray love, you have to feel it. You can’t do it any other way. But you don’t carry it beyond the set.

I was initially a leading man, but only on television.

It is intensely frustrating. The longer you live, the more interesting life gets, and yet many of the parts involve carrying trays and putting lamb chops down in front of the leading man.

I am not the archetypal leading man. This is mainly for one reason: as you may have noticed, I have no hair.

I’m an actor. I’ll take a lead if it’s offered. The really good actors can fill a character, no matter what the role is. A good leading man is a character actor; a good character actor can be a leading man.

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

When I started acting, I made a conscious decision that I wanted to be a character read and not a leading man. I didn’t want to do the same thing again and again. I wanted to push and challenge myself. I find and embrace new and unique challenges in all mediums.

I was never a leading man. I’ve always been in the outer concentric circles in the company, being a character actor, which is a good place to be. It gives you that diversity.

The Super Bowl is like a movie, and the quarterback is the leading man.

The script of ‘Shaapit’ was such that the leading man couldn’t be shown indulging into anything heroic.

I always knew I’d be more of a character actor than a leading man, and I always wanted to take that and run with it.

In the years since I worked with John Hughes, there were many years where I literally had hundred of doors slammed in my face because I wasn’t that kid anymore, and I wasn’t a character actor, and I wasn’t a leading man, and I wasn’t whatever Hollywood was looking for.

It’s weird but I’ve never really been the type to have fixations on the leading man actor. I’ve always been drawn more to the rock star. I love a guy on the microphone commanding an audience.

I was always a character actor, basically, that sometimes looks like a leading man.

To establish yourself as a leading man, you’re shooting for the smallest point on the target, and you get a lot of judgment thrown at you. It takes a lot for them to get past everything and just watch your art and what you’re doing.

I was only a leading man for a minute; now I’m a character actor.

At some point, you’ve got to realize, you’re either a leading man or you’re not.

I’m not a conventional leading man at all and have no wish to be.

I have played characters where I haven’t been absorbed – you know, what I call a typical film leading man role where you just have to look gorgeous and be attractive and charming. It bores me. I like a bit of dirt, a bit of sand in the oyster.

Honestly, I feel like I am a leading man, and it’s just going to take the right project, the female and the right studio. It’s got to all gel together, you know what I mean?

I have no aspiration whatsoever to be the next great leading man.

It’s properly scary playing a leading man. Growing up, I always wanted to be a character actor.

The only leading man I ever had a crush on was James Garner.