Quotes / Typecasting

Literature

Mr. Sullivan: Half these managers don't want actors and actresses — they want types. When my old father was runnin' a repertory company it was actors he wanted — fellows who could be Iago one night and Brutus the next and do a bit of farce or genteel comedy in the intervals. But now! If a fellow starts out making his hit with a stammer and an eyeglass he's got to play stammers and eyeglasses til he's ninety."

— Have His Carcase, Dorothy L. Sayers

Live-Action TV

"Because Dean Norris plays a cop in everything he's fucking in!"

— Steven Michael Quezada answering Jack's question as to whether "Hank" is a cop or not, Breaking Bad outtakes

Newspapers

Van Cleef's face, in close-up, has the lean, hardened, embittered expression of a man who has either (a been pursuing his lonely vengeance across the plains of the West for thirty years, or (b realizes he will be making spaghetti Westerns for the rest of his life. The two looks are nearly indiscernible.

— Roger Ebert, Death Rides A Horse (1969)''

Web Original

Berkley also appeared in an episode of the hit procedural CSI. In the episode, "Lady Heather’s Box", Berkley played a foam dancer. Which is not at all like a showgirl. Because foam.

—LeBeau, "What the Hell Happened to Elizabeth Berkley?"

So Bruce Willis plays a burned out wise cracking cop who doesn't play by the rules. That sounds like another well known Bruce Willis movie. Tears of the Sun anyone?

— Miles Antwiler on Striking Distance (1993)

Once it's been established that McDowell is significantly villainous – which could’ve been done easier by just having him turn to the camera and list his previous credits...

— Chris Sims on Malcolm McDowell Tank Girl review

Web Video

Jay: Liam Neeson stars in five revenge films a year. He's always out to avenge his daughter.
Mike: Those aren't movies.
Jay: Is that just— His life?
Mike: The films that come out about Liam Neeson, it's called an "ongoing biography series."

—Half in the Bag, "2014 Movie Catch-Up"

"Ronny Cox, whom you may remember from Beverly Hills Cop, RoboCop, Cop Rock, Beverly Hills Cop II, and his most famous work Cop Cop Part Cop: Still Copping."

— SFDebris

"Who says Michael Cera plays the same role in every movie? That's absurd! In Super Bad he played a mild mannered teenager looking for love, in Juno he played— uh, okay, well in Scott Pilgrim— in Youth in Revolt— uh, okay, uh... Oh! Year One, he played a mild mannered caveman looking for love. See? totally different!"

— The Michael Cera School of Acting

See Will Smith like you've never seen him before. Not as a Wildcard Cop with a By-The-Book partner from Bad Boys, or the Wildcard Cop with a By-The-Book partner from Men in Black, or The Wildcard Cop with a By-The-Book partner from I, Robot. Or the Wildcard Soldier with a By-The-Book partner from Independence Day, or the Wildcard Ex-Soldier with a By-The-Book partner from Wild Wild West. Or the Wildcard Mercenary with a By-The-Book partner from Suicide Squad. But a Wildcard Cop with a By-The-Book Partner: Who's. An. ORC! WHOA!

— Honest Trailers, Bright

Real Life

"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."

—MC Gainey

My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth.

—Barbara Stanwyck

I've been offered so many Nazi roles. You couldn't believe. And I've never really wanted to do it. I'll only do it if it's more obtuse. Like with Marwen. Same with Inglourious Basterds. I never had any desire to be in that kind of movie to be honest, for obvious reasons, and I feel like it's been done to death. How many movies do we need to see about that? That’s just my opinion. But watch, next year I'll be in more Nazi movies, I'm sure.

—Diane Kruger

Conan: What is it about Zachary Quinto that says 'serial killer'?
Quinto: My strong brows?

—Conan

David Warner: Who else was in that cast..?
Malcolm Mcdowell: Which one?
Warner: Hamlet. Do tell, who was in it?
McDowell: Well, Estelle Kohler...
Warner: No no no, I meant another guy. Well-known Star Trek guy.
McDowell: (pretends to think) Oh, you mean, uh, Bill Shatner? ...Oh! Yes! Old Baldy! He was what, 23? He was playing old men even then.

— Time After Time panel, DragonCon 2013

"I've played some romantic ones, someone who gets the girl without having to choke them once in a while; I wouldn't mind doing that more."

— Ray Liotta

My nose was to blame; it was the reason I kept getting cast as the Heavy. So I went to a plastic surgeon...the nose job didn't help. From then on I played bad guys with smaller noses.

—Joe Pantoliano, Asylum

Everyone has their thing they have to get around. With me, it's like okay, how can I make this upper class bad guy in the 19th century different and interesting?

— Rufus Sewell on his "cravat" roles

"An actor can be anybody, but once you find a niche for yourself it becomes difficult to break out, difficult to convince people that I'm also capable of playing a husband or a lawyer or a postman or a priest or a family man or a nice guy without a cop attitude."

— Dennis Franz

Paul F. Verhoeven: You're playing Max Lord, who is sort of like a troubled kind of dad, I would say, if you boil it down, and The Mandalorian is also a kind of troubled father figure. Are you afraid you're gonna get typecast as, like, "Unusual Dad"?
Pedro Pascal: I've totally moved into "daddy", haven't I?
Paul F. Verhoeven: You have, yeah.
Pedro Pascal: (laughs) I'll take it. It's time.
Paul F. Verhoeven: Yeah.

—This interview, promoting Wonder Woman 1984

I don't want to be the next Clive Dunn and end up playing the same character for years.

—Dermot Morgan on ending Father Ted

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