I was a hard fit at a young age. I didn't make sense as an ingenue or a leading love-interest lady.
Allison Janney
I was playing 40-year-old women when I was 20. I didn't get considered for ingenue roles.
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.
Amy Carlson
I was never, ever the ingenue. The young, innocent lead was just not me.
Anna Chancellor
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.
Annabelle Wallis
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.
Camryn Manheim
To be honest with you, most of the time the ingenue roles are a little bit dull and boring, in my opinion.
Carmen Cusack
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.
Carrie Preston
Character roles definitely age better than your ingenues. You don't get to keep doing that.
Catherine O'Hara
I saw I wasn't an ingenue like Debbie Reynolds.
Charlotte Rae
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.
Debi Mazar
Certain type of actresses get younger instead of older. I always say, 'Only ingenues age.'
Elaine Stritch
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.
Fred Savage
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.
Geraldine Page
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.
Hari Nef
I was never the ingenue, so hopefully that'll make it easier to age and still work. I know a lot of actors who are really dissatisfied with where they're at even though some of them are huge stars and I feel like, 'Oh, my God, you're at the top.' Something interesting will come. It always does. I have faith.
Hope Davis
I suppose that there might have been leading men who were put off from casting me as the ingenue because I was taller than they were, but I've no idea that this ever happened. When I did 'Much Ado About Nothing' opposite Mark Rylance in the West End, we used the difference in our heights as part of their relationship.
Janet McTeer
I don't know what I am. I guess you can call me a character actor in the sense that I'll never be an ingenue. You know, that's over. My shot was missed. I take a normal person and make them more of a character. I don't know what that would be called.
Jennifer Coolidge
I could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.
Jennifer Jason Leigh
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.
Jessica Henwick
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 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 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.
I was never an ingenue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.
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.
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 love playing an ingenue, and I love doing revivals, and I will continue to do that.
Onstage, I was never the ingenue.
I never played an ingenue.
I can't be an ingenue forever, and I wouldn't want to be.
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'm not afraid to play my age. I never was. I've never been an ingenue. I like getting older.
I'm certainly not 10 pounds away from being an ingenue! Of course I would love to lose 10 pounds. I would never lie and say I don't think about it, but I don't think about it on a daily basis. I love my body. I don't like wearing clothes that hide or cover it. I love wearing costumes that show it off.
I was always a character actress, even when I was an ingenue. But as you age, people know what to do with you, and you're not quite as dependent on maintaining leading-lady beauty.
I guess I've never really had a great desire to be a leading lady, or be seen as an ingenue.
I've never been interested in playing the boring ingenue.
I've never been interested in playing the boring ingenue. I always wonder: Who's her weird friend? I like the oddballs.
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.
When you say you're 40, you can't call yourself an ingenue any more.
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.
Frankly, there is no shorter shelf life other than that of a child actor, than that of the ingenue.
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.
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 was never an ingenue, thank God; always character.
'The Voice' has lots of singers who fit the 'Idol' mold of young, innocent ingenues with psycho stage moms. But it also has long-suffering adult pros, with a whiff of thirtysomething despair in their voices. That adds an edge of realness.
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 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.
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.'
