A Quote by Sanaa Lathan

I think I'm a character actress in a leading lady's body, but the industry doesn't really see me that way. — © Sanaa Lathan
I think I'm a character actress in a leading lady's body, but the industry doesn't really see me that way.
I'm a character actress. It doesn't mean I can't do leading roles; I don't think of myself as a leading lady.
I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress, because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.
I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.
On 'Swingtown,' I think that's when I was able to blend the character-slash-leading lady roles, and that's what I'm doing on 'Once Upon a Time' as well. She's a leading lady, but she's also this character.
I was always a character actress and never a sex symbol. Even when I was the leading lady, I was a character actor.
I'd really like people to see me as a real actress, which I am, but they don't. It's hard to get them to see me as a musician, they just see me as a hanger-on to the Stones, which is not what I am at all. It's a good idea, and if something like that would turn up I could do a whole television show. I've thought about playing a landlady, sort of a mad '60s lady, this absolutely insane character. I would love it. It's a great idea.
I am a character actress. Well, let's say, I am a leading character actress who does interesting, odd parts.
For some reason, my main movie, Lady Sings the Blues, to me really isn't me. I really can let go of Diana Ross when I see the movie. I'm really objective when I'm watching it. I liked that movie so much. That movie was like magic so that when I'm looking at it I'm really not seeing myself, I'm seeing the actress. I'm seeing another person, not the me of me.
'Heroes' was great, but I was like the sorority sister, the friend. So often, we as black women, we are cast as the best friend; we are rarely the leading lady. So for me, being on 'The Flash,' it's been so important for me to be the leading lady, to be the woman that is desired by the superhero, to be the hero herself.
Fortunately and unfortunately, people don't see me as a character actor. They see me as a leading man or nothing, which makes it really hard to get work.
It is okay, I believe it is not wrong for the industry or the audience to think that a lead actress must look a certain way or have a body of a certain type.
How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.
Books are a really fun way to get yourself in a certain mindset or mood as an actress. Also, the way people tell a story is so revealing and I think it's important as an actress to see all the different ways people can unravel a story, and introduce the characters and the way people speak.
I don't think I'm leading lady material, and I was always the wrong shape. I was never tall enough. But it was more lack of confidence. I shunned doing straight parts. I didn't think I was a good enough actress, so I thought I might as well do something they were supposed to laugh at.
I guess I'm the perfect young lead actress. I'm not Chloe Sevigny - I'm not really a character actress. Some actors have "character" faces.
If you ask me, I have not really seen any negative side of this industry. I have not met those kinds of people who can change the way I see this industry and make me feel that it's a bad or a dark place.
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