I was shooting on The Mindy Project while I was editing Alex of Venice, which was the stupidest thing I could've done. It was like having two full-time jobs. But in editing some characters were dropped, some storylines were dropped. It just starts dictating what it's supposed to be.It's scary, but fun to try to be brave and to "kill your darlings." To get rid of the stuff that you were like, "Oh, I'll never get rid of that. I love that. As long of a take as it is, I'm gonna keep that in."
I care about Roger Sterling, one of the most subtle and amazing characters in dramatic history ["Mad Men"]. This guys who knows precisely who he is, yet leaves us time after time hoping desperately for him to finally grab control of his life and some responsibility for those around him.
Here`s the Republican Party with round heels for anybody who says the right thing at the current moment. Regardless of their record, regardless of their character, and regardless of who they are, it seems that if you say the right stuff now to the Republican ear, Steve Schmidt, they will say yes, no matter who you are.
Sometimes I will portray the more normal-looking people as the monsters and then the more distorted - "uniquely formed" is the word I like to use, rather than monstrous - as the sympathetic characters in the painting. It's interesting because some people will get it right away, but a common reaction is to be a little off-put by it. And that is the whole idea. If it grabs somebody in a negative way, that's my intention.
I would love to play a British character one day. My accent wavers between Scottish and Irish very easily, though.
When I wrote 'We Can Be Heroes,' I was just so excited about the concept of playing loads of characters, and a television series allows you to do that.
Once I got into high school, any time I had to do a talk or a speech, I just loved being up in front of an audience, it was always a character. And then I discovered that an impersonation of the teacher was a really, really good way to get a laugh, and it would also get you good marks, because the teachers were always bored and loved to be the "teacher-parody." So that became my little trick at school, and I became known for doing that.
I think it just really excites me, the idea of delving so far into a character that people actually believe it's real, and I start to believe it's real. It's a strange thing to say, but it's the thrill of getting all the details right and being so absorbed in the character that people go along with the illusion.
I think sometimes people become quite emotional about the characters as well, and that's pretty cool that you can get that emotion out of people. And I think that's more my motivation than like, "Hey I want to be the funny guy, I want to be that famous funny guy." That doesn't sit as well with me as the idea of taking people on this ride and taking them into the illusion of the characters. That's much more exciting for me.
I never like to think of any character as being over. I'm always thinking of different ways of bringing them back.
I started doing comedy just as myself, because I thought, "This is what's expected, you're meant to tell stories and do observations." And then I started to realize that I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I started to doing songs, and I had a little keyboard onstage and would bring in little props. Then I thought about the idea of talking about a character and becoming the character onstage. So, it sort of morphed into being stand-up that was more character based, and I found that's the stuff I got the better reaction from and was more exciting for me.
I think the universal themes of "American Pie" are what make it attractive to everybody. How to people relate to these characters? It's because these five male characters in this movie wouldn't ordinarily be in the same friend group and they each have their own part to play in the whole thing. There's a character for everybody in this movie that they can relate to... that they either were or knew someone that was. To cover the range like that is pretty unique to our franchise.
Comedy is commitment and playing a character and falling into the role, and I've been doing that since I was 19 years old.
What's best for business is just continue to have an entertaining product with great, interesting characters.
You get the part, sign the contract and start to realize millions of people follow this guy and know more about your character than you do
Not often do you approach a character where people know more about him than you do.
[Marco] Rubio, in particular, focused on something far more elemental. Trump`s character and record as a businessman, and in the process perhaps added a few chapters to the Democrat`s play book against [Donald] Trump.
What makes You Can't Take It With You so popular and a perennial favorite with student and amateur productions (it continues to be one of the top 10 best-selling plays year after year) is the breadth of characters and personalities on display: in age, race, gender, social status, a true cross section of society when the play was written and also true today in terms of the reality of the humanity on display.
Even though the play [ The Best Man] was written a long time ago, the characters seem modern and their struggles to make ends meet and to "have a little fun along the way" have a very contemporary feel. The similarity between the The Great Depression and The Great Recession - as well as the gulf between the super-rich and the ordinary Joe - still rings a bell. One of the things this production accentuates is how beautifully Grandpa and his family accept all kinds of people - rich or poor, black or white - and the best thing that can happen to you is to be part of a loving family.
One of the great things about the longer you do a character, the more the writers start to understand your kind of character ticks and things that you like to do. The most exciting thing I think for a writer is when the characters just start speaking for themselves. You sit down at your keyboard and just stuff starts jumping out of their mouths. They just sort of wrote the scripts for themselves.
I think every actor tries to put a little bit of themselves into each character, and I think if you watch very closely, every actor has a bit of himself in every role whether they want to admit it or not.
The premise of 'Deadline' forced me to go against my own grain with a character determined to find all that is valuable in that time. I believe this is a story about redemption; how, even with the best intentions, it's sometimes found and sometimes not.
I grew up in a conservative small town, and the gay characters I saw on TV and in movies when I was growing up were all flamboyant and obnoxious and sometimes kind of annoying.
I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.
Hillary Clinton, as an awful judge of the character of a dictator and butcher in the Middle East. Is she guilty or not guilty?
