We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable.
If you were to sell your character, would you get full retail or would it go for a bargain-basement price?
The character of the Open Conspiracy [the movement towards a world collective] will now be plainly displayed. It will have become a great world movement as widespread and evident as socialism or communism. It will largely have taken the place of these movements. It will be more, it will be a world religion.
I think we're definitely playing up to characters. We see ourselves as a pop band. I don't have a pseudonym because I don't really need one, because I've got a weird name, but everyone has a stage name, and it's about a certain amount of escapism, really. The songs are inspired by the personal, but because there are seven of us that work on the songs together, they end up becoming Pipettes songs, rather than about any one individual.
I think everything you do, characters I always find, have their own voices and once you establish who that character is you find a different voice. I think it's just a question of establishing that character and the voice speaks through that character.
A lot of action characters are a little bit too serious as well. They take themselves a bit too seriously, which I don't find particularly interesting, whereas I like the fact that there was at least some humor in this because really it's a piece of entertainment.
Every time you say yes to a film there's a certain percentage of your yes that has to do with the director, a certain percentage to do with the story, a certain percentage with the character, the location, etc.
I want to bring something different to every film. I get a bit tired of actors who kind of are the same character in every film that they do.
I find it really difficult to even articulate things that I've done in the past. I express myself through the characters that I play, not through the articulation of them later.
I'll generally write out every scene that's in the film on a couple of pieces of paper, just with a little one-line. And then I can scan it a bit and go, 'This first third of the film, generally, I'm kind of calm.' Then I might do something on one piece of paper that just relates to the energy of the character.
I'm a musician, and I'm fascinated with the effects of sound, and tone, and pitch and melody and all that sort of stuff. It's the first thing I have to solidify whenever...I get into a character. The first thing I need to get sorted out before I can then move forward, before I can feel any confidence whatsoever, is the voice.
Silent films are fairytales. All stories are more or less fairytales, and removing speech makes everything more universal. It makes specific characters stand in for everybody, so actions take on fairytale significance. And the writing has to be pared down to represent people as types, too.
If I'm playing a fat person, then I actually eat a lot of cakes and as much as I can. If I'm playing a person in shape, then I'll increase my intensity of boxing training. It's really dependent. It kind of allows me to take whatever specific character I want.
You do research into specific occupations of the character, with specific behaviorisms that their daily life might give them. You do as much research as you want, as you can. Now that you have such open access to the Internet, it's very easy to do so.
I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.
There are in me, in literary terms, two distinct characters: one who is taken with roaring, with lyricism, with soaring aloft, with all the sonorities of phrase and summits of thought; and the other who digs and scratches for truth all he can, who is as interested in the little facts as the big ones, who would like to make you feel materially the things he reproduces.
A lot of times, you're not necessarily off the page because you haven't been able to take the time to prepare a character. It's very easy to find even great actors reading it more like a reading. Things aren't really coming alive yet, even though you know they will.
Silent is about needing to make a scene shorter by having physical things to cut to. That way, you can manipulate a character to the other side of the room. But, if they say the wrong thing, it might locate that action in a particular part of the scene. It's a mechanical need.
There are all kinds of ways that people present their films, but that's kind of a good feeling, if you can make it seem like the characters are really there.
In high school, I read 'Silas Marner' and I was very attracted to this character - he was very rundown and he'd just stop, and things would happen around him.
I really wanted the house to be a character. And I knew, I said, I'll produce that one, but if I direct it, I need to build a house.
I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but I'd love to do one where one of the kids dies, or one of the main characters dies. I love for those things to have a little bit more tragedy.
Oliver Stone will never be happy with the first take. He wants more than that. When youre delivering your lines, hell stop you and tell you some kind of riddle about the character and you have to go away and figure that out. If youre hoping for him to give you all the answers, then youre in for a long day.
That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all.
I try to put myself into whatever character I play.
