A Quote by Jurnee Smollett-Bell

I wouldn't be able to tackle a character like Rosalee on 'Underground' without having tackled the many characters I've played before. — © Jurnee Smollett-Bell
I wouldn't be able to tackle a character like Rosalee on 'Underground' without having tackled the many characters I've played before.
I had played many gay characters before, but they were finite - guest characters in TV shows or characters in plays.
I'm grateful that so many viewers have related to characters I've played. I think many in the audience see themselves in my characters or feel like the characters are similar to their friends or sisters.
The characters are born from repetition, from repeatedly thinking about them. I have their outline in my head. I become the character and as the character I visit the locations of the story many, many times. Only after that I start drawing the character, but again I do it many, many times, over and over. And I only finish just before the deadline.
I love being on the field with Jeff Wilson. The way he carries the football, the way he makes people look at him after he gets tackled. They are like 'Why did it take four people to tackle that guy and why are two guys on the ground from trying to tackle him?' Because he's an absolute monster.
I have always liked kind of outsider characters. In the movies I grew up liking, you had more complicated characters. I don't mean that in a way that makes us better or anything. I just seem to like characters who don't really fit into. You always hear that from the studio: "You have to be able to root for them, they have to be likeable, and the audience has to be able to see themselves in the characters." I feel that's not necessarily true. As long as the character has some type of goal or outlook on the world, or perspective, you can follow that story.
I like playing a variety of characters. I feel like I've been able to play different kinds of characters - I've done a lot of period pieces - but I've never had to play the same type of character too much.
Maturity: Be able to stick with a job until it is finished. Be able to bear an injustice without having to get even. Be able to carry money without spending it. Do your duty without being supervised.
I've played almost every lead character from Henry VI to Othello. I'm dying to tackle Richard III sometime.
Without our faith, we wouldn't have been able to succeed. On many occasions, before we'd go out on a sit-in, before we went on the freedom ride, before we marched from Selma to Montgomery, we would sing a song or say a prayer. Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful.
As much as I can and am able to, with the projects that are presented to me, I try to just really choose things that are challenging and are something I haven't tackled before.
In my time, we had little league and junior league or whatever - before that, there's the sandlot. Kids played baseball wherever you can make a space. We played tackle-football on the street. Now we play basketball in the studio. We have a hoop. But we also have a pitching machine.
I don't know technique-wise, just I've always tackled the same. I've never even really thought about how I tackle or any of that.
What's actually amazing is that, after a couple of years of living with characters and writing characters and talking about characters, as we sit in the writers room and break episodes, it strikes you, every once in awhile, that you're talking about a character that's played by the same actor, who you've been talking about forever. We talk about a character dying, so you get emotional, and then you realize, "Oh, but wait, that actor is still on the show."
I have played in rain before. I have played in wind before. I have played in cold before, but not all put together. They were the hardest conditions I ever played in.
I'm sure there were concussions galore back when we played, but the doctors would just say, 'Shake it off,' or something like that... or 'Come on, you got to be tough... get back in there.' I see so many guys who played pro football in their 50s now who are so debilitated from having played it.
I don't like having characters as props. I never want a character to be a prop.
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