The industry often locks into viewing actors in certain roles and is not always interested in seeing them stretch. What parts have you found yourselves getting tired of being approached about?
CUBA GOODING JR.
"After I did Boyz N the Hood, I got every street-kid offer. I chose one, Gladiator, which was a boxing movie, but still a street kid. Then after that I told myself no more, and I wound up playing a deaf-mute in a Western called Lightning Jack only because it was different than anything else. I just didn't want to be the go-to street-kid guy."
RAMI MALEK
"In the breakdowns, I'd always just look for someone quirky or weird — that's what I'm going to go in for, surely. I resented it for a while, and then I thought, "This is something to be proud of, that you can be that kind of outsider in anything." But at first I was like, "Here we go again.""
FOREST WHITAKER
"I've played a lot of detectives."
PAUL GIAMATTI
"I've played a lot of guys sitting in vans with headsets on, watching reel-to-reel tape. I did a lot of this (puts hands to his ears): "We lost him." I was that guy. Or this guy (typing): "Get out of there, Mike. Mike? Get out of there, Mike. Oh my God, he can't hear me!" (Laughter.)"
Are there doors you feel remain closed to you? Parts you just can't land, despite interest on your end?
BOBBY CANNAVALE
"White guys. (Laughter.) Cowboys. I'm always getting the ethnic roles of some kind, like a mob guy or an Italian-American pizza guy or some shit like that. I never get, like, doctors."
GIAMATTI
"I'd love to play an Italian. I am Italian, and I never get to play Italians. I've had people tell me I'm not Italian enough. It's hilarious."
MALEK
"We get all the Italian guys. (Points to Cannavale.)"
GIAMATTI
"I'd love to be in a Western, but I know if I'm in a Western I'm going to have to play this guy (wiping the table), "What'ya havin'?" I'm going to be that guy. Or I'd be the corrupt mayor, the guy who's building a railroad through somebody's farm. (Laughter.)"
What are the things you have each read in a script and said, "You know what, I'm not going to do that"?
WAGNER MOURA
"Kids suffering. I just can't do those scenes."
MALEK
"A rape, unless it's really purposeful or for a director you appreciate. But that's a difficult thing to be in a situation to have to do with someone. Most of the time with us, though, it's the scary stuff that draws us to the role."
GIAMATTI
"I've been offered some real psychopathic parts, things that are just brutally violent, and I don't care to do it unless there is some real reason for it."
WHITAKER
"If I'm a really dark character, I do sometimes consider if I want to live in that space for that length of time."
GIAMATTI
"That's actually more of what it is with some of these things I've been offered. I'm like, "I don't want to play that serial killer.""
GOODING
"I'll do absolutely anything, but it wasn't always that way. I remember sitting with the director of Six Degrees of Separation [Fred Schepisi], and he said: "I want to know that you're committed to doing this role. There is this scene where he kisses a man." And I said, "Listen, when I get into character I go all the way in — and I'm not comfortable with it, I'll be honest with you." Now I see how childish it was to think that way, but as a young black actor in L.A. who represented the manliness of that time period, I just felt, "Oh, I'm going to alienate people." [Will Smith ultimately landed the role.] Then you grow up and realize how immature it was to think that way."
Read the full roundtable interview at The Hollywood Reporter.
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