Top 71 Ingenue Quotes & Sayings

This idea of the world expecting you to remain an ingenue forever - it's a very short shelf life if you're going to commit to that as your career, and I knew that early.

I could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.

When you say you're 40, you can't call yourself an ingenue any more.

In my fantasies, I always wanted to play the ingenue, but in reality, in my bones, I am so used to playing the grandmother that I don't feel safe or even sure that I can do it.

I always chose sophisticated parts because you can't really be interesting as a young girl or outstanding as an ingenue.

When you're the ingénue no one is really interested in you for that.

I'm not so fascinated by these ingenue roles. I tend to gravitate towards women in plays or shows or films that are more chaotic or have something dire going on.

I was never an ingenue, thank God; always character.

There's kind of a time you get warned about where the rug gets pulled out from under you: beyond ingenue, before you get into character stuff.

Ingenue parts are plentiful. And once you get old, they'll start hiring you again for character parts. But the middle years are tough.

I'm not afraid to play my age. I never was. I've never been an ingenue. I like getting older.

I would not want to go back to playing the ingenue.

I don't want to be the ingenue anymore. It's nice to be glamorous, but I don't want to always be an object of desire. Because it doesn't last.

On the one hand, I always get the young ingenue, pretty parts. But I don't think of myself that way because I was an ugly duckling when I was growing up. I have to be reminded when I play a part sometimes that I'm playing the pretty girl.

I couldn't be an ingenue today, because the business has changed. I remember when you could dress for a premiere just by putting on a cute top. Now you have to be perfect and fabulous in every way, or you're ridiculed.

To be honest with you, most of the time the ingenue roles are a little bit dull and boring, in my opinion.

I was never an ingénue at any point in my career. I was hoping that whatever I was bringing to the table, it wasn't some physical attribute that would change or fade over time.

Not that it was Twiggy's fault, but the ubiquity of her image created a sense in young women that to be stylish meant to be skinny, flat-chested with an ingenue face and straight hair.

For me to want to be an actor was an improbable idea. I wasn't beautiful or pretty in any conventional way. I wasn't an ingenue at 22. But I was always certain of it and certain of its power. I felt the power when I went to the theater at 9, 10, 12 and 14.

I was playing 40-year-old women when I was 20. I didn't get considered for ingenue roles.

I need space to grow and get old and be a human being. I don't want to be trapped in your ingenue bubble. And I don't agree with it either, by the way.

I had a professor in graduate school who told us, 'Know what you're good at, and do that thing.' And I thought, 'Hands down, I'm an ensemble girl. I'm a fierce ensemble girl. I am dependable.' I was never seen for the ingenue or the leading lady.

I've never been interested in playing the boring ingenue.

Onstage, I was never the ingenue.

I saw I wasn't an ingenue like Debbie Reynolds.

I never felt like a happy-go-lucky ingenue to begin with. And parts are written better when you're older. When you're young, you're written to be an ingenue, and you're written to be a quality. You're actually not written to be a person, you're written for your youth to inspire someone else, usually a man. So I find it just much more liberating.

As a female actress - I've been doing this since I was a teenager - I often got approached with the ingenue roles: naive and wide-eyed and childlike.

I guess I've never really had a great desire to be a leading lady, or be seen as an ingenue.

I was never the ingenue or the pretty girlfriend of Tom Cruise in a movie. I didn't have that career, so I don't have to compete on that level.

I spend a lot of time at my son’s school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies.

I was a hard fit at a young age. I didn't make sense as an ingenue or a leading love-interest lady.

I've never been interested in playing the boring ingenue. I always wonder: Who's her weird friend? I like the oddballs.

I was never one of those actors who believed, 'I'm so gonna be an ingenue.' I already knew that wasn't gonna happen, and I decided not to torture myself with it.

I've always wanted my characters to have more dimension and realistic cores than the ingenue material often provides. It's been a challenge.

I wasn't some sort of ingenue. I always saw myself as a lifer in this industry, and working as an actor on 'Wonder Years' was a first act.

But I've always been hard to cast, I've never been an ingenue, I've never been the romantic lead. I'm an actor; give me the script and I do what I do and hope it's good.

I love playing an ingenue, and I love doing revivals, and I will continue to do that.

Women are often written as one thing - the ingenue or the vamp - but real women are many things.

I was never an ingenue. I've traveled the globe, I've backpacked through South America, I've done conservation work in Africa. I was never the girl who knew nothing of the world.

Frankly, there is no shorter shelf life other than that of a child actor, than that of the ingenue.

I played the ingenue, of course, when I was young - but even with those, I tried to make interesting choices and mess them up a little bit - make them layered and complicated and not all stereotypes.

I spend a lot of time at my son's school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies.

I feel like, in my 20s, I was putting my hair in a ponytail and pinching my cheeks and raising my voice an octave. So I feel more comfortable being a woman than I did being a young ingenue.

I can't be an ingenue forever, and I wouldn't want to be.

I never played an ingenue.

My early acting was ingenue stuff.

In my fantasies, I always wanted to play the ingenue, but in reality, in my bones, I am so used to playing the grandmother that I don't feel safe or even sure that I can do it

I couldn't get any of the ingenue roles when younger because at 5 feet 9 inches with a deep voice I was always too... genue. My career has completely happened since I was 29.

I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.

I'm trying to show I'm a trained actress - I can transform myself into different characters. I'm not just an ingenue.

Ageism is interesting for me because I've been playing someone in my 40s since I was 20 or so, but I have experienced it. I've been lucky in that I haven't had to play the ingenue and feel that slip away.

I wasn't, like, pretty enough to be the ingenue; I wasn't 'character' enough to be the goofball sidekick. I'm kind of ethnically ambiguous.

They did cast me as an ingenue once, and the novelty was nice. But I said, 'There is nothing here to play!' I really like getting into the meat of a role.

When I studied at Juilliard, I did a lot of pushups and became this diesel machine. I was really big and was like, 'This is not a good look for an ingenue.'

I've never wanted to be the ingenue. Now that I'm getting into my forties, I think my time as a woman has arrived; I think I might have a new moment in my career. I have that drive left - just for a little while.

Suddenly you're the mom, or you go from ... You're not an ingénue, you don't want to play an ingénue, but it's like that line in The First Wives Club [1996]: "There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy."

I was never, ever the ingenue. The young, innocent lead was just not me.

I think of myself more as a character actor than that ingenue leading lady, who started out something like Michelle Pfeiffer, or Jessica Lange. I'm a bit quirkier than that.

I know the fact I've worked continuously since drama school means I fit a stereotype - the ingenue.

I like Shakespeare, but it's not my bread and butter. It's not what fires me up about acting at all.A lot of the ingenue parts leave a lot to be desired, in my opinion.