Yes. Otherwise I could have done a lot of Hollywood movies. After Crouching Tiger I got a lot of offers, but I turned them down because they were all victim roles - poor girls sold to America to be a wife or whatever. I know I have the ability to go deeper, to take on more original roles than that.
A lot of new girls are arriving every day - let them do the glamour roles! I am done with ultra glam outfits and five song routines - hereafter, I want to do meatier roles, now that I've acted with all the biggies.
I've actually got turned down for a lot of roles because I'm not bubbly enough. People have told me to be more 'up', but I can't, really. I find it hard to be smiley and giggly all the time.
Throughout my career I've played a lot of parts that might've been played by a man. They're human roles rather than specifically men or women. I've never been as hooked into that as a lot of women are, you know, like, 'There aren't enough roles for women.' There aren't necessarily a lot of good roles for anybody.
I had been in a Shakespeare company for three years and done a lot of Shakespeare. That was fun. That was interesting. It was a lot of work - anything other than Shakespeare was less work. I had a lot of interesting roles, but I don't point to them and say, "That was more interesting than that," because I don't know what the criteria are.
It's weird when auditioning for roles, because a lot of my mates go out for the same roles. You don't want to know that you're beating someone to the role.
Being a wife and mother are the single most important roles in my life. They take a lot of work, a lot of patience, and help from God and His Word, but if you put in the effort, it's more fulfilling than anything on earth.
Honestly, I'm willing to experiment with far more variety in roles than I'm given. But ultimately, it's the producer's decision. But, I've done a variety of roles - the evil don, the evil husband... I've done villainous roles, supporting roles, etc.
If you just look at the number of roles for women versus the number of roles for men in any given film, there are always far more roles for men. That's always been true. When I went to college, I went to Julliard. At that time - and I don't know if this is still true - they always selected fewer women than men for the program, because there were so few roles for women in plays. That was sort of acknowledgment for me of the fact that writers write more roles for men than they do for women.
I was getting offers. I had just turned them down. Then I realized I should be grateful that at age 54, people were still offering me film roles.
I do get offered a lot more roles than I choose to do. I'm very busy as a producer and a writer, especially with my Internet stuff, and I tend to only accept the roles that I know will have an impact and has a fanbase.
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've turned down a lot of roles. Some of them made stars out of the people. I have no regrets.
I had been struggling to get roles in Hollywood for three and a half years after leaving the WWE. Then I finally got an agent - the agent I have now. He's a great guy, but he turned me down three times before he even decided to take me on a as a client.
Coming out of 'Spy Kids,' I immediately wanted to do more grown-up roles, and I was turning down a lot of the kind of younger, cheesier roles.
After I got to Hollywood, I resented that I didn't get a crack at more dramatic roles because I photographed so beautifully.
I'm a huge fan of good, procedural-type shows on television... there are a lot of roles for women. But there aren't a lot of great network television roles for girls that will let you start a character in one place and finish up with her in a totally different one.