I've done literally 100, 150 different characters.
Truly great performers reveal not only their characters but bring everything they know about the world with them. It's not just what's in the script but the story of everything you've done and of who you are. If you're Chaplin, you're the immigrant. No matter what he's doing, he's always the little guy trying to make his place in the world.
I'm a neurotic New York Jew by birth. Creating characters is second nature to me.
'Lost' is about a bunch of people stranded on an island. It's compelling, but kind of tiny. But what sustains you are the characters.
It's always hard, when introducing readers to a new world/set of rules, not to lay it all out manual-style in the opening chapters but make sure to put the action and the characters at the front. If people don't become invested in them and in the story, the world in which it's set will become a burden.
Action films are great, but an action film that has characters that are compelling and a story that people can care about is something even better. We love to see action heroes that are vulnerable, that are sensitive, that are family people, that are accessible.
You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.
I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.
Something that I really enjoy doing is creating and being a part of very different characters and very different projects.
We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.
I am a variety machine; I look for variety in my characters, and an extra edge in the characterisation helps in bringing out a better performance.
There are so many great characters because one of the things that makes Batman fantastic is that Batman is tragic. I've said this elsewhere; I've said it over and over again, but the beauty of the character is that he's a Don Quixote.
I've always had difficulties with female characters.
To me, people's lives and loves are entwined with their characters, natures and circumstances. I regard all general advice with skepticism.
All the Disney lead male characters always have this kind of John Davidson kind of look to them. They all look like the same guy, and all the females look like the same, and I think the guys are just way too big.
As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't so different.
One of the things I find in writing about people who are dead is that, after a short or long time, no matter how close the relationship was, they become like characters in fiction.
The result is a picture that represents so much of what I want and rarely get from a movie - a couple of hours filled with characters who are as exciting as the people I know in real life.
It's the only way I really know how to tell the story is to be able to kind of live through the characters. So when I find something that resonates with me, it's usually because it cuts to something very real inside of me; something that I've gone through or experienced.
Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.
I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart - they were wonderful actors. They didn't act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.
I've read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, 'Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.' I don't want to be part of that.
That's the whole point of writing to me - I put my characters under incredible duress, and from that comes their truth. In a way, I'm using them to try to find my own answers in life.
People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.
Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.
Sometimes as writers, we try and put narrative development above character development. We try to move our characters around like chess pieces that do our bidding. The problem with that is sometimes the characters do things they shouldn't do. Things that are inorganic.
I really enjoy the writing process because I can do it from my house. I can create these characters and take them in the different directions that I want to take them. You have a lot of freedom as a writer.
I'm drawn to emotionally damaged characters because there is more to unlock.
I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.
I'd like to play nothing but good characters.
I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think them, that is what I do, I feel them with the sympathetic neurons and I work out with my brain what it is that I am trying to write about, or I can't do it.
And I'm so excited to remind people and even gain new fans who find out about Dharma - a new generation who could find out about Dharma and enjoy her and all the characters on the show.
The puppet characters were combinations of people I had known and to some degree aspects of my own personality. Weird was based on someone I knew in Chicago. Dirty Dragon was based on a good friend I had in Indianapolis.
I think sometimes with new characters, you can kind of hit a creative valley, and it's important to recognize when you're in that valley so you can get back out and get back to that peak.
I love being in the archives, traveling, sitting in dusty places and looking at books with brittle pages. I love reading biographies and researching, to make myself informed about whatever political or historical time I'm writing about. From there, a lot of the emotional truths about my characters emerge.
If you think of the people who are funny in your life, you'll note it's not because they tell jokes, it's because of their character. If you develop characters, then you'll know them, and you'll know how they'll speak. The comedy will come out of the character.
