'Ida' doesn't set out to explain history. That's not what it's about. The story is focused on very concrete and complex characters who are full of humanity with all its paradoxes. They're not pawns used to illustrate some version of history or an ideology.
My characters have to talk, or they're out. They audition in early scenes. If they can't talk, they're given less to do, or thrown out.
I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.
I am in love with all the characters I have played. And it is impossible to choose the best.
I like to cast actors I admire, one's that are talented. Each one will bring something new to the part. This play has been done thousands of times and now certain characters are too familiar.
All the characters in my books are imagined, but all have a bit of who I am in them - much like the characters in your dreams are all formed by who you are.
Every actor will tell you it's so much more fun to play the bad guy because usually those characters are more complex and more broad and more interesting, and have more sides to them.
I read mostly science-fiction and fantasy when I was a teenager, and I was always drawn to stories where the characters had telepathic powers.
I'm much nicer then all my characters, let's just put it that way.
I am drawn to characters that go on journeys, characters that are real people, that have life.
It's much easier to conjure characters strictly from your imagination than to have to think about whether you're representing people in a truthful way.
Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.
Sometimes the characters I find the most compelling are in independent movies. With independent scripts people can take more challenges.
It is a wonderful thing in the process of writing when such paper characters are first sketched, and, when one is doing good work, from a certain point in time they come alive and start contradicting the author as well.
In the music industry, you meet some not very nice people, some very strange characters.
My favourite book - 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford, which I have read about 20 times - is different from my favourite author, who is Iris Murdoch. I find her books exciting and unputdownable. Her characters are so carefully studied and in-depth; I love that.
I don't keep a record of the parts I've played, and I don't compare characters, but maybe I should? I could construct a graphic that grades badness and madness levels? Interesting idea.
There was a lot of fiction I did not enjoy, whose landscapes seemed bland and unevocative, the characters faint-hearted within them, the very words lacking vibrancy.
Even in horror novels where you know most characters aren't going to make it to the end, it's crucial to have fully fleshed-out characters. If you don't do that, the reader doesn't care what happens to them.
I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission.
I don't like characters who are either good or bad. I just don't experience that in life, so my writing hasn't evolved that way.
I want people to like me. They don't have to always like my characters, you understand.
When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn't expect me in comedies or musicals.
People ask me to record their answering machines all the time. I love it. It's a miracle to me that people want to hear back those characters.
I studied classics, and I find it mystifying that we had Medea and Electra and Antigone and all these amazing characters, and they don't really exist in cinema now. The only person who's really doing it, and he gets loads of criticism for it, is Lars Von Trier.
My hope is that shows like 'Fresh Off the Boat' open the door for even more of those kinds of characters for Asian actors and actresses.
I've played many characters that have consumed me and owned me.
I love the characters not knowing everything and the reader knowing more than them. There's more mischief in that and more room for seriousness, too.
The thing is, I never see my characters as psychopaths. I see them as really crippled victims who just happen to do bad things. And I never see them as bad guys; I see them as darker characters. I never see anything as good or bad; it's more light or dark, and the in-between is the grey.
I love the wilder, more outlandish characters that are hard to make believable. Those are the ones I want to play.
William Shatner has one style. We have completely contrasting personalities. We're very good friends. I adore him, but we're very different people, so they were smart enough to write characters that reflected that.
The first movie I literally ever made in my life was about two guys playing Stratego with each other. I had all my friends dressing up like the military characters in the game. So 'Battleship' is really my second board game turned movie!
After 'Othello,' it was, like, 'I can stop acting. I have played one of the great characters in the English language. I feel I have played him well and honorably. I have nothing to prove anymore.'
It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well.
I've sort of closed my mind off to reality shows: I just don't watch them, don't care about them, don't know who the characters are, but they're all in general usage.
My role in 'Legally Blonde' was really rewarding, because I had so much fun working on the movie. I've had really rewarding experiences on tiny low budget films that you'll never see but where I had a cool time creating characters as well. I love almost all of the characters I've played.
