A Quote by Laura Benanti
Television can be a little tricky in terms of finding roles that feel fully flushed out, which is why I love being in the theater so much, because the roles tend to be really on the page.
Related Quotes
Television has been really good to me in terms of the roles I've been able to get on TV as opposed to the roles I've gotten in film and in theater.
When I was younger in the theater, I didn't really feel like I got much recognition from the powers that be. I got a lot of small roles - I never got the standout roles.
I played Sanjay Dutt's role in 'Son of Sardar' in a Kannad film. But because roles aren't being discussed and published that much people tend to think that I am doing only negative roles.
I really loved working on comedy. Most of my roles have been very dramatic and involved lots of emotional work and crying on cue. I do really enjoy those roles because you really feel accomplished at the end of the day but they are very emotionally draining! Working on a comedy show is just fun and at the end everyone is laughing! But I am open to all roles and genres just being on a set and being a part of the magic is what I love most!
So now I feel I'm lucky in the respect that I can sort of pick a little more carefully, which is tricky because as a black actress, there aren't that many roles to pick from.
I'm an actor and I am looking for roles where I can continue to evolve, and things that are challenging. I gravitate to the roles, not necessarily television or film. It's just the fact that, for me, the most interesting roles have been in television.
I love playing darker roles, or roles with meat. I feel very comfortable in that environment. I don't know why. I don't know what that says about me. I really enjoy doing complicated characters.
Theater roles are written by the great masters. The greatest literature that you can possibly know are the theater roles like King Lear, Hamlet, and all of those great roles. So all you do is you dive into these unchallenged roles and see how far you can get, what kind of accolades you can get, and how good you can be in them. In movie roles, you can actually improve them by knowing a lot about your own stage technique, which helps a great deal in the cinema and how you can project inner humor even though the particular dialogue is not necessarily funny, but you can infuse it with humor.
The kind of roles that I'm right for on stage tend to be quite young, and ingénue roles can be a little unfulfilling. They tend to fall into one slot: play the innocent young girl who comes on and does a lot of crying.
I always look for roles that make me feel good about being a girl. I have to say that there are a lot of roles out there that make me feel really bad about being a girl. You can imagine what the things are and I shall not go into detail.
I think there are great roles for women in television because there is time to allow those characters to evolve. Even if you're the wife or the girlfriend or whatever it is that we women are, playing those things on TV, they are much more drawn out and there are greater arcs for the role. The roles are more integral to the complexity of the story.
People often ask me why I don't take up more heroine-oriented roles. My question is, 'Where are these roles?' I really appreciate actresses who sign only films with meaty roles. However, there aren't too many of them. The industry is simply male-dominated.
I think when average-size people start taking roles that were meant for dwarfs, that's a little frustrating because there aren't that many roles out there for height-challenged actors.
I gravitate to the roles, not necessarily television or film. It's just the fact that, for me, the most interesting roles have been in television.
There's plenty of girlfriend roles out there. They've come my way, and many people have turned them down, and I think, "Oh maybe I could do something with this." It's interesting when you get those roles, which seem like nothing on the page, and you kind of subvert them. It's hard to say no.
I wanted to play roles which offered new ways of viewing black women and black people in general- and I have done that. And I have always, whether I needed to pay the rent or not, I've always turned down roles which I thought were stereotypical. And so when I look at my body of work in that respect, I am really happy. Because I feel my work does say something positive and that was what I always set out to do.
Related Authors
Angelina Jolie Quotes
American
Actress
Carrie Fisher Quotes
American
Actress
Cate Blanchett Quotes
Australian
Actress
Drew Barrymore Quotes
American
Actress
Emma Watson Quotes
British
Actress
Jane Fonda Quotes
American
Actress
Jennifer Aniston Quotes
American
Actress
Kate Winslet Quotes
English
Actress
Kristen Stewart Quotes
American
Actress
Lena Dunham Quotes
American
Actress
Marilyn Monroe Quotes
American
Actress
Meryl Streep Quotes
American
Actress
Mindy Kaling Quotes
American
Actress
Sandra Bullock Quotes
American
Actress
Selena Gomez Quotes
American
Actress
Viola Davis Quotes
American
Actress