Over the years, I've been trying to build a relationship with an audience. I've tried to maintain as much of a low profile as I could so that those characters would emerge and their relationship with audiences would be protected.
There are times when you do a play when you are living in the character over a two-and-a-half-hour period or longer, and you come to the end of the night, and you can feel like you were hit by a truck.
I actually love working with accents. I don't know, something about it unlocks something in me. It makes me concentrate on getting into character a little more, helps me find a focus.
We have audiences that seem to be embracing whether they've heard of the characters or not.
We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God. And that's all we need to know. Worry about the future is not simply a character tic, it is the sin of unbelief, an indication that our hearts are not resting in the promises of God.
I love playing a character that eats on television. It's so fun.
I'm an actor and I've created a lasting and memorable character named Frasier, who is not me, but who most people think is. So when I have a chance to play something that's different, I embrace it because it's fun; also in this case, he's a memorable character.
Get inside her head. Get inside any character's head and ask what they want in this scene. And if you work from the perspective of what they want, there's not going to be any wrong answer. There's going to be some boring answers, but none of them are going to be wrong. As long as she has agency, then you're on the right track.
I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.
I think with every character I get, there's an approach that's appropriate. I feel like my own job is to interpret what there is in the film and show that through me, sort of really channel myself through the role. If I feel I need to get into it to the point where I don't leave it, then I will.
For me, I just like to be as fun as possible, but I do like to bring a lot to a character. Given the script or the show, I know my boundaries, limits, and how far I can go with it. As far as me choosing these characters that have a lot of personality, I don't necessarily think it's intentional. I just think that I try and come up with a backstory of who they are, depending on the script or how rounded these characters are, and just go from there.
I have no idea and I think Steven King strongest suit is the characters that he does create, all in the same area where he lives. The way he describes them is one of his fortes and it boggles my mind how he's able to do that and to create so many. It must be thousands by now.
Costume design is so important and really helpful, and I really love that aspect of character development, just figuring it out.
So when things start going badly, you're invested in the characters in a way I think amplifies the horror and the fear because you're invested.
It's weird. I feel like people assume if a character is very different than you, that means it's difficult to get into their head or into their skin.
I find that in the science fiction world, you have almost more women fans than male fans and I think it's because there's been such a shortage of strong female characters.
Very thorough in the rehearsal process but more in terms of just understanding the characters, understanding where the actors are at with discovering those characters for themselves, and just setting an overall emotional tone for the piece as opposed to necessarily getting things up on their feet or staging scenes.
I'm often drawn to characters that are more obviously one thing. They're passionate, and there is always an element of strength because I think every person possesses that in some way, even if they've experienced hardship in their lives.
Something I was adamant about was that the movie [Everybody Lovess Somebody] wouldn't end with, oh, marriage saved [the main character]. They're married and she's OK. I was very pushing on having the ending be that she made an inner growth of healing so that she can then have the ability and the space to love and be loved by someone else, and that love is open-ended and doesn't mean they're going to get married tomorrow and all her problems are solved.
You have to find out how to become the character.
Im doing pretty good as far as geniuses go ... Im like a machine. Im a robot. You cannot offend a robot ... Im going down as a legend, whether or not you like me or not. I am the new Jim Morrison. I am the new Kurt Cobain ... The Bible had 20, 30, 40, 50 characters in it. You dont think that I would be one of the characters of todays modern Bible?
I loved the idea of doing impressions and mimicking and playing around with the spectrum of your own voice. That's what I enjoy most about doing voiceovers. You can be completely unconscious with the rest of your body and just concentrate on doing something with your voice, creating an entire character with your voice.
I just want to do shows because you get to see, over all the seasons, the person grow, and you get to grow with the character. That transformation, for me, is what I love about my job. I get to learn about myself and challenge myself and grow with the character. For me, it's a whole process of learning and growing.
I’d like to be the kind of actor who is remembered for my character. You know how there are cases where even when you watch all the way through the end of a drama, you remember the actor’s name, not the character’s. I want my character’s name to be more remembered than mine.
For my second novel, The Apothecary's Daughter, my editor encouraged me to think of another unusual profession for a woman to have. That led to the main character, Lilly Haswell, who finds herself doing the work of an apothecary at a time when it was illegal for women to do so.