Menu

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Sophie Okonedo Quotes

I find it so all-encompassing when acting that there’s no room for anything else when you’re in it; you’re just locked into thinking about it all day, you go to sleep with it, wake up with it, and when I come back, I really need time to recover.

– Sophie Okonedo

When I take on a role, all I tend to do is get to know the script and ask millions of questions, and keep fine tuning what I think the character is trying to say.

– Sophie Okonedo

I never watch anything I do. I really would rather just not know at all how I come across.

– Sophie Okonedo

My life is not nuts. I hardly ever watch television, I don’t go out very much, so I don’t really know what’s going on.

– Sophie Okonedo

When I do things that aren’t very good, I’m worse as an actor. I don’t know what I pick up – but it’s something not very nice.

– Sophie Okonedo

The photo shoot I always feel a bit embarrassed about because I don’t really know what to do with myself, but they usually don’t use a bad photo, so you can’t worry too much. So my main concern is that I just look a bit more like myself.

– Sophie Okonedo

The repetition of the theatre means you’ve got the time to get deeply inside the person you’re playing.

– Sophie Okonedo

Sometimes I really need the money, really need to go straight to work. But if I had the absolute choice – money no object, my mortgage paid off – I’d really just work once or twice a year – but wouldn’t everybody! – or at least do a different job sometimes.

– Sophie Okonedo

I get offered loads of unusual stuff. I just don’t do loads because I like staying at home a lot, and I’m a little bit lazy. I don’t get that thing of going from film to film that people do. It would drive me nuts, and that level of fame is quite scary.

– Sophie Okonedo

As a child, I certainly wanted to have hair that I could grow long and flip around. I no longer want that. My own hair that I have day to day is a fuzzy afro. And that’s who I am.

– Sophie Okonedo

Being a character actor, I can go on until I’m 70 or 80; I’m not bound to the way I look.

– Sophie Okonedo

I always try to think of positive things to say about the people I portray, as it’s more helpful for me.

– Sophie Okonedo

My main form of exercise is my bike. I don’t have a car, so I cycle everywhere.

– Sophie Okonedo

I don’t like going for more than a year without doing theatre. I don’t mind falling flat on my face so long as I feel I’m open to the possibility of something extraordinary happening.

– Sophie Okonedo

I do love being an actress. The other stuff, the ‘fame’, well – you know what? – you don’t actually have to buy into it if you don’t want to.

– Sophie Okonedo

I’m drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. I’m not saying I don’t love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because I’m always struggling with it myself.

– Sophie Okonedo

As a black actress, all I was offered in British film was the best friend role, whereas in TV I was offered a whole spectrum of parts.

– Sophie Okonedo

But I’ll tell you what I’m really bad at: I don’t concentrate on what I’m doing, so I constantly lose things. I put my purse in the fridge – I’m one of those people.

– Sophie Okonedo

I’ve told lots of lies in my life. I try not to lie, but I still do. It’s very difficult to get to 37 and not be ashamed of something you’ve done. But I think your life is easier, ultimately, if you’re honest.

– Sophie Okonedo