Top 99 Character Actor Quotes

I do think I’m a character actor.

I always wanted to be a character actor rather than the poster boy that they tried to make me 100 years ago. An actor has a degree of responsibility to change for the audience, to give them something new each time, to surprise and not bore them.

Those offers come in now and again. They’re not knocking down my door. I’m only an old character actor, and I’m not needed.

I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.

Being a character actor, I can go on until I’m 70 or 80; I’m not bound to the way I look.

I have no qualms being a character actor.

I have no issue with being a character actor. If you’ve been around enough that people are able to segregate you into that category, it means you’re working. So that’s good!

If you put me in a box, I’m a character actor. The thing that keeps popping up for me – it sounds really cliche – but I want to play something really physically challenging, something extremely demanding and strong.

I don’t really think there’s much difference between a character actor and a leading man besides aesthetics.

It’s the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized… It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to… In L.A., I’m just another character actor.

I think every character actor at some stage likes to carry a film. It can be extremely liberating to just come in for a scene or two and do your thing. But I find it frustrating if I’m just doing little bits here and there for too long.

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.

I have always weirdly seen myself as more of a character actor. I have never been suave. I could never see myself playing James Bond. I suppose I could fake it, but I am certainly not James Bond in real life.

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.

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’d love to be remembered as a character actor who brought illumination to roles in wonderful plays and who delivered performances that made people think and rethink those roles.

How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, ‘You’re a character actor in a leading man’s body,’ and I can live with that.

The hero of the ‘Peanuts’ is Charlie Brown. I play the dog that sleeps on the top of his dog box who’s a philosopher. I’m drawn to that. So I’m drawn to Barbossa as I’m drawn to Einstein, because they are outsiders, and I suppose, as a character actor, that’s the turf that you’re locked into, in a way.

I am a character actor and one of my characters just happens to be a loud, vulgar woman.

I found myself sort of becoming a character actor, though I don’t know if that would be my natural makeup.

I admire many actors, though I don’t think there’s anyone whose career I would want to mirror sort of by the beats. What I’m really looking to do is constantly defy expectations. I’m very curious to see if you can actually have a character actor and a movie star’s career combined.

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

I was born a character actor.

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.

The chance to play a romantic character who kisses somebody onscreen was one of the elements that made me want to do ‘The Stand.’ The more you can do, the better, and I’ve been known as a character actor.

I consider myself a character actor.

I’m a character actor.

Oh, I’m dying to play Donald Trump someday, just because he’s an unbelievable character. I’m a character actor; that’s what you look for: outsized human beings.

I realise that certain actors project their own image onto the screen – those who are the same on as they are off. But I’ve never had the necessary statistics to be able to do that sort of thing, and so, anyway, I always wanted to be a character actor.

The camera lens or the television camera is still just a proscenium arch. And as a great old character actor once said to me, wherever you’re acting, you reach up and take hold of the proscenium arch, and you pull it down around your shoulders.

I consider myself absolutely a character actor, and that’s what I want as a career. I don’t need to be the lead star or any of that, as long as I’m doing stuff that I’m proud of, really.

As you get older and ease your way into being a character actor you have to be comfortable with where you are in life and career, and I’m very comfortable with what I’m doing – working on projects I’m proud of.

Dad began his career in 1941. He started as a character actor and remained one right up to ’87.

I like the wild characters. I like the idea of being a character actor without being a character actor.

I’m a character actor; that’s my skill set.

I’m a character actor so I’ve jumped around to all kinds of things.

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.

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.

One thing that’s great about being a character actor is that a movie doesn’t rest on your shoulders. If it bombs, it won’t hurt my career.

I’m a leading lady character actor; I don’t fit in one slot simply. I’ve always been used to a certain amount of struggle, and that prepared me wonderfully for a mature age.

My definition of a character actor is – they never get the girl.

Here’s what I have at my advantage: I’ve never been a personality. I’ve always been a character actor.

Whether or not I am a ‘character actor’ or any other kind of actor, I really don’t know. When people call me a ‘character actor,’ I fail to understand what it means.

I like to think of myself as a character actor, though there’s some redundancy in that.

I just wanted to be a working character actor.

The reality is that there are so few roles out there for women and for women of color, and I’m a character actor, this I know. And I’m getting to see more of the roles that are out there, but there aren’t many. And zilch have been studio movies. Zilch.

The nice thing is that, at least in Los Angeles, I’m known as a character actor and I do auditions for other things besides just cartoon shows.

My sense of myself is that I’m a character actor, and character actors are ready, willing, and able to do anything, to be totally different from themselves. That’s my job, to be ready. I’m some kind of first responder.

I’ll be working the rest of my life because I’m a character actor and don’t have to worry about box office.

I believe I am a character actor who likes to hide behind my characters.

Well, I’ve always been a character actor, you know, and you always get your share of character actors who are bad guys.

I have a problem with the term ‘leading man.’ It’s so limiting; it involves not upsetting anyone. Obviously, we have anti-heroes now, but if we’re talking about the two tropes – character actor and leading man – I would so rather be a character actor. That’s why I have a career.

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

My approach to the work is the same, whether I had the lead or a supporting role. I consider myself a character actor in the true sense of the word. Unless I’m doing my autobiography, I’m playing a character.

There is less pressure as a character actor. It generally means that you will be acting for all of your life, which is my intention. It is not my intention to just be a rich and famous person, that would be pretty boring.

Any good actor is a character actor.

Eventually, I’d love to be known as a character actor.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

I was working in Chicago, in theater and in commercials and anything that anybody would let me do. When I moved to L.A., I had made a choice to be a character actor, meaning that I wanted to become somebody else. That’s what attracted me to becoming an actor in the first place.

My goal was just to work regularly. I didn’t ever expect to be rich or famous. I wanted to be a working character actor.