Quotes About Casting

There are lots of wonderful old Italian actors. You don't need to take an Egyptian to play an Italian actor.

I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.

They offer me item numbers, Bhabhi roles and all that. When they offer me the role of the main lead, that particular film ends up not being made. I don't know what they want.

Mel Gibson would not be a good James Bond.

What I love about 'Mockingjay, Part 1' is that President Coin or Cressida could have easily been played by a man, and if you look at 'Interstellar,' the Anne Hathaway or Jessica Chastain roles would have been men years ago.

There just aren't that many Jesus roles around.

I love Jet Li, but he looks very Chinese, and his English is Chinese-accented. He wouldn't have been the right guy to play a Japanese-American.

I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.

A role I would not do: cool jock. That's not something I'd be interested in doing.

I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this.

I was expecting someone dark to play 'Dexter' - someone like Johnny Depp.

The girl-next-door image is a sort of joke; for years, I couldn't get any roles other than as somebody dark.

My first in, my first break, was I met a director and got to talking with her, and she happened to be casting this movie that she had written. That was ten years ago. That got me to Hollywood. I got paid $700 bucks.

When there is a pain-in-the-neck role for a girl to play, the directors start yelling 'Agnes.'

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn't been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn't like what a woman her age is offered. That's a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn't work the other way around.

Older actors can still play young, but it's harder for young actors to be able to play that age range.

Who are these people who are taking these decisions of casting only young actors in films? It is the filmmakers and the film producers. I don't know if that is what the audience wants because I really believe that masses respond to a good story.

It's kind of a crazy thing with kid actors because a lot of them get hired without people really knowing if they're good or not. They get hired for the way they look at a really young age. You also have your fingers crossed around kid actors... because the lessons they learn on set aren't always the best. You can really get whatever you want.

I think Michael Crawford realised, I think we all realised, once we'd gone the route of casting a very young girl, you can't really cast a 65 year old man opposite. Slightly different resonance I think. No, we weren't going to go there. We'd have Jack Nicholson in the lead.

When I auditioned for Tim Robbins for 'Cradle Will Rock,' the young girl who read with me was very young, and I said to Tim, 'I'm sorry, but I don't have enough imagination to pretend this girl is my husband!' And he said, 'Well, I'll read it with you.' Which was very nice; he was the director. And I ended up getting the part.

I can remember getting rejected systematically by casting directors as a young kid. I felt like the biggest outsider there ever was; that I'd never belong in that club.

I did two commercials, one for Porsche, but I was definitely not the type of child one would cast in a commercial or any TV that you'd typically go out for as a young kid. I wasn't the type of kid who would be in stuff that kids watch. I wasn't cutesy.

My first audition was for Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life.' These casting directors came through Texas, and they recruited somewhere around 10,000 kids to come and audition for this movie. They sent me a letter in the mail, and I went and auditioned for this movie.

When Gene first contacted me for 'Star Trek,' he gave me the part of Spock to read! I'm glad I didn't take it because I don't think anyone could have played Spock better than Leonard Nimoy.