Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.
Personally, I prefer to play against the look: If a character appears particularly unhinged, with makeup running down her face, I like to play her as if she has it together. I think that juxtaposition makes it so much more interesting.
I think when you have a character as richly drawn, I suppose then there are subconscious, mental notes that you've made.
o matter how much research you do, or invention you do, whether it's a character from a novel, a completely invented character or someone who actually existed, it's a work of faction. By the very fact you only have an hour and a half or two hours to tell a story, you're telescoping events and it is, in the end, a work of imagination.
I've got a funny old face. Someone described it once, and I think they were being kind, as character. But I know what they mean! I've never been that conventional. I suppose maybe it means that my face can look different in different lights, so I just try and sort of keep it simple when I'm going out, to still look like me.
I have the embarrassing thing where often if you're watching a film, you kind of go through the emotions and the thought stages that your character went through, but you sort of do it with Tourette's. So I end up often crying when I'm crying, and looking angry when I'm looking angry, so it's pretty ugly.
I'm not particularly interested in playing characters that think the way I do.
I'm not interested in playing characters who see the world through my prism. I think the journey of understanding any character is to see how they tick and how they differ from you.
I often have a few scents depending on if I'm playing a character. The character may be wearing a scent that perhaps I wouldn't wear. We've all got different moods and ways we want to express ourselves; scent is a very powerful way to let people in to your secret life.
