To work with her, you had to really understand how she saw your role, not how you saw it. She had a very clear-cut understanding of her role, and you had to fit into that interpretation. She was so great, [yet] she could not distance herself from a role. It was actually quite terrifying — she would at times actually cry while singing! You must only portray the emotions, not become personally involved. But Maria always became the role. She was such a servant of the text and the composer, she would tear her voice to ribbons to accomplish it!
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Jon Vickers, as quoted in "The Callas Legacy" by James C. Whitson in Opera News (October 2005)Maria Callas
The roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfill something in our personalities; and one does not, therefore, cease playing a role simply because one has begun to understand it. All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.
James Baldwin
'In the beginning was the Word,' and you must not be tempted with a script just because you have a great part. You want a great role to play, but the whole - the whole - must be good. It'll never succeed if it's just the role you like.
Bette Davis
Every time I do anything, I have to ask myself: Is it a good role, and is it right to do it? There may be sex or nudity or violence in the script, and then you have to say: Is it gratuitous just out to shock people? Or is it there because it has to be? If role demands it, and it isn't gratuitous, I'll do it. It's my job, after all. I'm an actress. I know what I'm capable of — it's other people who have a problem with my image, not me. I hope I can do all sorts of things, not just one type who's all sweetness and light. Unfortunately, people forget it's a role and confuse it with you.
Julie Andrews
Just as the good actor perform well whatever role the poet assigns, so too must the good man perform whatever Fortune assigns. For she, says Bion, just like a poet, sometimes assigns the leading role, sometimes that of the supporting role; sometimes that of a king, sometimes that of a beggar. Do not, therefore, being a supporting actor, desire the role of the lead.
Bion of Borysthenes
In the pivotal title role (Rigoletto - ed.), Vytautas Juozapaitis - fondly remembered for his marvelous performance of the title role in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" with the Lirico here in 2003 - sang with a dark, commanding, tragedy-tinged baritone that vividly conveyed the character's flawed humanity and despair. And he masterfully delivered the role's two big arias.
Vytautas Juozapaitis
Callas, Maria
Callender, James T.
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