Marisa Tomei's Favorite Roles — From 'My Cousin Vinny' to 'The Wrestler' and More!

The acting bug bit Marisa Tomei early in life.

“My parents really loved the theater,” she recalled. “Seeing how happy it made them, I probably wanted to make them that happy." She also made fans, critics and peers happy, winning an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny and pocketing nominations for In the Bedroom and The Wrestler.

Here are Tomei's ten favorite roles and what the 59-year-old actress says they mean to her.

“It was a highlight, for sure. I really, really enjoyed it … except for my character’s unforgivable haircut," she admitted. "It was not my fault! I just was a babe in the woods, and they were like, ‘We’re going to do this to you.’ And I was like, OK …’”

“I’m grateful that that role made lots of people laugh," Tomei said. "Hollywood was so alien to me, like another planet. I had no relationship to it at all, and then after one movie, I was in the thick of it. There was no time to adjust or step back and see what it was all about.”

"I didn’t really know how to pick and choose. I knew that I was most interested in a variety of characters," she explained. "It wasn’t in contrast to, ‘Oh, now I don’t want to play this because I have to get away from this image.’ It was more, ‘What else is out there? I’m curious.’”

"I’m a leading actress caught in a supporting actress vortex," Tomei revealed. "I never intended to get into only supporting roles. My feeling was, all roles are great, and it’s just what you want to do with it. I’m still looking for those Barbara Stanwyck roles, which are very rare.”

“It was kind of frustrating to be the ‘straight person.’ Working alongside Jack Nicholson was so exciting. He’s such a versatile, enthusiastic actor and person. He’s so alive! Just to be around him and feel his zest for life was a privilege," she spilled.

Doffing her duds, she recalled, “I was like, ‘What the h--- am I doing?’ Early on, I was concerned that doing nudity, I wouldn’t be taken seriously. I’m pleased it happened later. There’s a definite freedom and confidence I’ve gained in my body as I got older.”

“I love it when I get to do something really overblown like Crazy, Stupid, Love that can just be silly,” confessed Tomei, who took the part of the exuberant Kate “because I thought she was just bonkers! And it had so much physicality. So, any place [for me] that there’s an opportunity to do physical comedy, I jump at that.”

"Theater gives me the grounding, and keeps me alive,” Tomei shared of Broadway turns à la The Realistic Joneses. “I love everything about it. I think about it a lot, ‘Well, maybe I’ll only do plays?’ and then life takes you in different directions.”

"The industry has decided I’m an aunt-type now. It’s lucky I didn’t know much about Aunt May from the comics. I might have been horrified if I’d seen the original image of a gray-haired pensioner," she explained.

Tomei said of playing Edith Bunker for TV’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience: “When I was little, watching All in the Family, I didn’t really relate to Edith. I love playing a dingbat, but I also love playing the person who’s wise and you don’t think she’s wise.”