A Quote by Emily Atack

I want a part playing a really ugly geek, with no make-up and my hair all tied back, so I could just be a character without worrying how I look. — © Emily Atack
I want a part playing a really ugly geek, with no make-up and my hair all tied back, so I could just be a character without worrying how I look.
Once I reported for a dramatic lesson. The coach looked at me and said, 'Amanda, can't you part your hair some other way? It makes you look too much like someone else on the lot.' I rushed home and parted my hair in the middle and have ever since. I even wore it tied up in a big bun in back.
Movie stars exaggerate certain things to let the audience know they're just playing a character, as if they're saying, "Look at me, I'm not really an old man, I'm just playing one." Or "I'm not really a homosexual, I'm just playing a gay character. Or an alcoholic. Or somebody who's mentally impaired." They often do it very successfully and win awards for it.
I really like red hair. I think if you have brown hair, you want blond hair; if you have blond hair, you want blue hair. We always want what we don't have. It takes a while to admit, Hey, it's just part of me.
I think growing up, you just deal with 'I'm ugly,' or 'I don't look right,' or 'my hair is wrong,' and it's such a distraction from what can really elevate you.
I'd love to pop back into 'Being Human' as Adam. I love the character so much. I've never really played a character like that. I'm always playing the geek, so to play a kid who is very energetic when he wants to be, and who is always trying to get the girls, was really cool.
Playing a plainer role means everything is dependent on the credentials of the actor, not the fact that they are as pretty as Julia Roberts. People start to look at their talent rather than their appearance. And playing the ugly part often means less time in the make-up chair, which is a great benefit on set.
I wanted to touch on how we look on each other. Good hair, light skin, you must be smart; if you're black, you're dark-skinned, you're ugly. That really happens. This is something that started with slavery, when they divided the house, and it's still a part of today's society and things that we battle with.
I don't know how many more movies I'm going to get the opportunity to make and I don't want to look back and go: "Man, I just floated through that one." Or: "I did that one for the money." I want to be able to say that I worked as a hard as I could and I did the best work that I could do.
I really admire actors who have time, because time is really the greatest luxury for an actor to live with a character, to develop a walk and a talk, or to listen to tape if you're playing a real character. But without time you're really just forced to make quick choices and move on and hope that the spaghetti sticks against the wall.
Growing up, I had really big hair. Giant hair. As I got older, the goal was to make it smaller - I wanted to look like everyone else. So I got a weave. I would manipulate my hair and try to make it straight.
You want to be challenged, so you feel like you want to get up and wrestle with the character or enjoy the character - especially with a TV show, because you know you could be doing it for a long time, so you want to make sure it's something you really enjoy.
I think the trick is, how do you spend time doing it but make it look like you haven't spent time doing it? Over the years you look at women like Lauren Hutton and everyone says: 'She just pulled her hair back and ran out of the door.' I've been in fittings with Lauren and she definitely thinks about it. She just knows how to make it look easy.
I'm not afraid to have no make-up on and no hair. I just want to be stripped back.
I feel fortunate that I've had a lot of songs recorded by other people, because I take my songwriting very seriously. It's only those people that have followed me over the years and really know my work that know how serious I am about all of it - including the way I look. You can't take my high heels from me, you can't have my long fingernails, you can't take all this hair from me, because it's part of this thing that I've become. I wouldn't want to give any of it up. Do I have to be ugly to be a songwriter? This is the way I am, and it's what I choose to be.
We film 'Resurrection' in Atlanta, where humidity is a force to be reckoned with, especially for those of us who have naturally curly hair. I would love for the au naturel look of the '60s to come back. No make up, no hair products - just sun-kissed skin, freckles, and crazy curls.
One of my jobs as an actor, regardless of who I play - even if I'm playing a despicable character - is to make people think that that character could exist, that he's real, and the way to do that is to make him believable. He doesn't have to be likable or charming, but he just has to be believable. That is someone who I could see on a bus. That is someone who I could walk past in the street.
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