Character Quotes - Page 461

The cool thing about doing films and being different characters is that it's new everyday and new every project. So, you're always learning something different and you get to do research.

I'm always aware that there's a trick to television to prevent an actor from becoming too lazy. Once you become too familiar with a character, it can stifle the adrenalin from flowing through in the performance.

My work is to know the characters intimately and to tell their story.

I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed with confidence. But the truth is my characters start doing and saying things I don't expect.

As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.

You learn to exploit genre for the more important things - to my mind - like story, character, image, language.

I just love doing broader work - I always get asked to do fairly heavy-duty, intense dramas and interesting, psychologically intense characters. But you know [sigh], it’s nice to make people laugh sometimes.

I've always been interesting in characters that challenge people and who are not always that easy to like.

I like the opportunity to play characters who have these dark sides but make the audience empathize with them. You want them to think there is some kind of sweeter, softer side to it.

There's so much energy that's needed, for every stage of the process, so I don't want to do something that I'm bored by with characters that I don't like or actors that aren't going to surprise you.

I'm looking for richness, complexity, and characters that have different layers and that you don't really get bored of.

My philosophy is always, "Let's get the spirit of the character." If people believe in it and the spirit of it, then it will work.

Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can.

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.

I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then.

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe its because I talk too much!

I love meeting booksellers and readers and hearing how they've read and received my stories. Often I'm surprised by which characters they've loved best, what scenes have stayed with them, what connections they've felt between my characters' lives and theirs.

I think that the most important thing for me is how is the character that I would be reading for? Is it interesting? Is there stuff to do? Are there things that you can do with the character? How can you play it out? Just those kinds of things that are very important for an actor.

If I was playing Carrie, I might have done differently but I felt like as my character. I mean, I'm definitely bringing myself to the role but I wanted to pay homage. I hope I did. We'll see.

I have played several characters that are crabby and cranky. I don't know if I'm just not a very well-developed human being or if I don't know myself very well, but I tend to find I can take on elements of the characters that I'm playing. When I was playing a character like Becky Freeley in Miss Guided found that I was insanely positive and happy all the time.

I think that comes with a collaboration with the writers. I think that we get cast in edgier roles because we are a little more offbeat, so people - as we get to know the writers, and as the writers get to know us, they start to write around us more, and that's why I think the pilot is not always the best way to get to experience a new television show, because we're fitting ourselves into these characters. Whereas as the show evolves, they're writing the characters for us and for our strengths and weaknesses.

I like working in television because it's an evolving story that you tell. That's also one of the things I don't like about it, too. Because sometimes it's hard, and just when I think I've nailed something, it changes or we have to change it or change the joke or the character is evolving in a way that I don't have control over.

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He [Wilhelm Reich] believed that the individual's walk, stance, and breath patterns revealed a specific character type. Reich thought chronic muscular tension indicated repression and blocked the expression of affect. An example is the tight holding of the chest area as a sign of repressed feelings of need and longing.

I think it's very important for me to work on myself while I'm working on a character, and also it's important how I'm giving to and educating an audience. So I tend to go with people who are complex and substantive.