Daily Inspiration Quote by Emily Mortimer

There is a sly double performance happening here: Emily Mortimer praises a role by confessing she cant live up to it. Calling her 51st State character "so out there" is industry shorthand for a part that lets an actor break the rules of likability, plausibility, even personal habit. It signals relish: the pleasure of wearing someone louder, stranger, more extreme than the self youre required to be in interviews, on sets, in the thin corridor of public expectation.

The line about being "sad to leave the character behind" lands because it treats a role like a temporary superpower. Actors often talk about physical transformations; Mortimer frames it as an attitude you borrow. That sadness is the comedown from inhabiting a person with more swagger, fewer consequences. Then she punctures any myth of seamless glamour with a self-deprecating kicker: "Im afraid I could never be that cool in real life!" Its funny, but it also quietly defends the craft. If the character reads as "cool", thats not Mortimers natural charisma accidentally leaking through; its constructed, chosen, played.

Context matters: The 51st State is early-2000s crime-comedy, a genre built on heightened energy and stylized bravado. Mortimers remark positions her performance inside that tonal world while still keeping her personal brand intact: approachable, witty, not trying to sell you a celebrity persona as the real product. The subtext is a gentle critique of our expectation that actors should be their roles offscreen. She is reminding you that the fantasy is the point and that its healthiest, maybe even most humane, when it stays on camera.