So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.
My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people.
I think a film should be appropriate to what it's trying to say or the characters in it.
As artists, we are so not in control most of the time of the content or the narrative of our characters, and sometimes writing takes a turn and it's not something we necessarily have control over. It's just a lot of random dumb luck, so when things click, you've just got to enjoy it.
Acting and writing go together. Actors write because they love words and becoming other people - we love to escape into other characters.
I've noticed a lot of people are very bold and blustery on Twitter because it's easy to do that with the poison keyboard and a hundred and forty characters.
He always describes his characters' voices and their physique so brilliantly. As people have said, they are cartoons, caricatures. They're grotesques really.
Your characters have to remain innocent of what your picture is after.
Dragons, to my way of thinking, are just another 'race' of sapient characters. We see lots of elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, giants and, of course, dragons.
Once, Naseeruddin Shah told me that the wafer shop was the best acting school that I could have attended. And I completely agree. I observed every customer very minutely and picked up some quirk or the other. Later, I used those experiences while playing different characters.
I don't differentiate between black and Latino actors. We're in the same struggle to be represented in a way that's even close to honest. And I can tell you that the amount of Latino characters I can point at and say, 'That's what my life experience looks like' - I can't think of any off the top of my head besides Jimmy Smits in 'Mi Familia.'
In each of my characters there is a little of me. Not strictly autobiographical but a little piece of my soul.
I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race.
We started getting the script to different people and we were in the business of trying to fund it so we could get it off and running, and all the characters and sets designed and everything.
What attracted me to acting, from the start, was playing different characters. I'm not a massive fan of just playing myself on screen.
When you put your characters in a dire situation, they often do things that surprise even you, so you have to go back and revise your original conception of who they are.
I think there are a lot more relationship scenes in my movies that people tend to overlook. A lot of scenes really feel real and are about the characters.
I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I've played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters.
I think people are excited because, even watching 'Boy Meets World,' you can tell that those characters are going to do something when they get older. I think people are excited to see characters they grew up with continue.
I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers.
I tend to play strong characters and people just assume that I would want to play romantic comedies, which I would love to do, but there are other women that do it so great and they maybe couldn't do what I do, play the kind of characters that I play.
I love playing characters that are bigger than life and maybe have a darker side that they present to the world. Those are good characters.
I always want the audience to identify with my character in some way. I mean, sometimes you'll get characters that aren't very identifiable. Sometimes you can't relate to your character at all. I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment.
People want to find out what happens to the characters, and want to keep reading, and turning the pages.
Never argue with your characters; they know themselves better than you do.
If you care about the characters, then whatever scary thing happens to them, you feel it even more.
A lot of people get stereotyped into roles just from how they look, and I have played such a variety of characters.
Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.
No matter what's happening in my life, I can always get lost in the romances of my characters.
'The Newton Boys' was the one time I've made a film with really active characters who weren't at all self-reflexive and just plowed through their lives. There's a part of everyone that's like that. We have a biological imperative to keep living, keep moving forward... We have no choice.
My best writing has to do with an internal process that I'm working out unconsciously and put into my characters.
In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.
Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me, telling me their tales.
If you compare the violence in 'Happy Valley' to the violence in something like 'Game of Thrones,' it's nothing. But it is shocking because it's so real and grounded. The characters could live next door to you - they're not in a remote fantasy world.
I'm in the business to push it. I'm not likely to be attracted to characters I've already done.
It's always hard to wrap up a series. The longer I spend with the characters, the more they become like friends.
