It's rewarding for me to have people know me as two very different characters. I think when you see people as one character, you expect that they are like that character. So it's nice to be able to throw people for a loop a little bit.
You have to get rid of characters to make room for new ones, but you also have to recognize when things are done.
But we did see the process develop. I remember going to the Rocket Pictures base and they had something like 40 people there, drawing. They didn't know what the characters looked like yet and I remember on the walls seeing 30 or 40 different versions of Juliet. So, it was then that I realised that someone's got to come in and make some really executive decisions.
That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from.
I have this wholesome disposition in a lot of my characters. A certain earnestness.
I don't like when people relying on me in any kind of business way. I'm just a writer. I'm just noodling around and trying to come up with great characters and fun ideas.
Since I was there in the very beginning, I know the history of the characters. So, I make comments about the tone and sometimes remind the writers that we've done that before.
It's a funny show. The characters are surprisingly likable, given how ugly they are. We've got this huge cast of characters that we can move around. And over the last few seasons, we've explored some of the secondary characters' personal lives a bit more.
The tendency in comedy is to have a character who's stupid get more stupid, because you're trying to top yourself and not just repeat.
I like conflict, drama's conflict and if you don't have that in the character it's really not a worthwhile role to play for me.
I look for really great characters. I say great because as long as they're really good, there's something you can do. And really good storytelling. And when people ask me what the story is, I say it's really several stories really. They're intermeshed.
I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable.
I like to do comedy, but I'll be perfectly honest, I prefer to do drama and more character-driven-based stuff, generally.
A lot of people think that they are really cool because they don't outline. In my writing group, they would say, "I will never outline. I let the characters take me." C'mon, man - I outline the story, but it's only like one page. It's a list of possible reversals in the story, like things where everything will just change because of this certain reveal or this certain action. Then I start really digging into the character because, to me, I don't care what the story is.
All that matters to me as a reader are characters. I want characters to be real, authentic, and rounded. I will be digging into characters for at least a month. Who they are. What they are like. Outside of the story.
I usually play characters that are a lot different than me. I mean, I'm never in a fight in a movie and if I'm in them, I'm usually losing.
Generally, the bigger the budget, the less interesting the characters become.
I think your text [script] is everything; it's what informs you; it's what gives you the given circumstances. Then you take that and you add your own creativity and your own spin on things and you make it personal. That's what makes that character and that text unique to you, when you personalize it. I think that's where your job as an actor comes in.
Give your hero a strong simple reason that he or she has to solve the problem right now.
When you're an actor, you're very much exposed, but in a strange way you're totally protected behind a character, behind a script, behind a director.
While a forgery illegally exploits the elitist taste for rarity, a kitsch object insists on its anti elitist availability. The deceptive character of kitsch does not lie in whatever it may have in common with actual forgery but in its claim to supply its consumers with essentially the same kinds and qualities of beauty as those embodied in unique or rare and inaccessible originals.
I think when you have a band that are so separate and isolated then you have to know each others styles and characters quite well.
A crisis unmasks everyone.
Holding unconventional opinions makes people feel they have strong characters.
Authority is conferred by position, not character.
