There is a comfort zone of knowing where things are going and having characters in place, but the action gets more and more dramatic and is very challenging to describe.
The Seventies seemed like this really open time. There were a lot of strong women characters deciding what kind of artists they wanted to be.
One of the things I really like about Ford's films is how there is always a focus on the way characters live, and not just the male heroes.
My face lends itself to austere characters, and unless they're two-dimensional, I will do them. Any actor will tell you that an interesting villain is much more interesting to play.
I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger.
There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.
The first time I read a crime novel - I think it may have been an Elmore Leonard book - it took some time for me to realise how the genre worked. There were about 20 characters on the first page, and I wasn't used to this. I started to enjoy it when I saw that was how crime books worked.
I've published a couple of short novels in France that I didn't want to publish in English because I loved the characters too much to subject them to American critics who were not exactly favorable toward my work.
As an author you hope your characters have sparks but truly in the end they have minds of their own!
If you can relate to what the character's going through, the story can be as ridiculous as possible, and people will relate to it. You can be fearless in your storytelling if you're vigilant about protecting your characters.
Obviously, a lot of TV shows are based on chronological episode viewing, and the stories are contingent upon watching it in order. Syndicated shows, you don't have to watch in order. You're just watching characters that don't change that much.
Television is where the best work for women is right now. I would love to do more movies, but the reality is women have many more opportunities on television to play a greater variety of characters.
If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.
Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough.
I look at some of the old villains in the Disney movies. If you really listen, you can hear some of the villains or some of the supporting characters, they use the voices over and over because they were so versatile in the way that they performed on voiceovers.
M*A*S*H offered real characters and everybody identified with them because they had such soul. The humor was intelligent and it always assumed that you had an intellect.
Doing voiceovers is so great because even though many people would think it's just your voice, you really do use all your physicality. I've done everything from playing a butterfly to Alice in Wonderland when she's 10 feet tall, so it allows you to be an actor and build new characters.
If my characters travel somewhere, I generally write about a place I know to give the scenes more authenticity.
In creating the Harry Potter artwork, I try to bring a certain amount of realism and believability to the characters and setting, but still add an element of wonder and the unknown.
I am attracted to these outsider characters who just don't belong anywhere, and who are operating in worlds they sort of don't fit, coupled with huge ambitions.
I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect.
When I was younger, I was nervous and didn't have a huge amount of confidence as an actor. Comedy is something - you know when you're getting it right because you can hear. And you can hear if you're not getting it right! I like to create interesting, weird characters, and they're often best in comedies.
What I like writing about are people's relationships, not necessarily great big dramatic things but the smaller things in life and how they affect characters and challenge and change the people that they are. I do like a happy ending, so my books have to have a happy ending.
I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.
I do what I do because of Walt Disney - his films and his theme park and his characters and his joy in entertaining.
A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.
Most of these wild animals depart in autumn when the sun changes their behavior and they feel the urge to migrate or go off alone. While they are with us, however, they become characters in my books, articles, and stories.
One of the things I really love about TV is this symbiotic relationship you can get between the writers and the actors, and the characters start to come to life because you start to collaborate.
The cast, led by the extraordinary Jennifer Lawrence, is absolutely wonderful across the board. It's such a pleasure to see how they've embodied the characters and brought them to life.
The first script I got was Narc and I really responded to it; it reminded me of a '70s type movie, I really liked the characters, I didn't anticipate the ending.
I don't have to live the lives of my characters to write about them. It's about really putting yourself in their shoes.
I like to think what I bring to the table is kind of a sympathetic and endearing quality, even while I'm playing outcasts or characters that end up in outlandish situations.
Our first scene is sort of a reunion between the X-Men characters, which establishes everyone's relationship to one another, sort of like a recap for all those who have forgotten since the last movie.
Going into hospitals and being able to meet kids that are in similar situations to those that the characters are facing in the 'Red Band Society' allows us to see the truth of these real humans' lives.
I'm basically drawn to defeated, injured, hurt, barely walking characters.
There are so few shows that are willing to take risks with their characters in the way that 'Homeland' does. And yet, the audience still comes back and loves those characters.
