When you're directing an ongoing series, the tone has already been set. So a director will come in and fulfill that tone - reinforce the characters and their behavior. The challenge is to find unique ways that you can visually tell the story while keeping the established tone and the pace and the characters.
I always look to play flawed characters. I'm not very interested in playing somebody that's just, you know, the very nice one or the attractive one, or whatever, which a lot of female parts can just be written that way.
I don't like having characters as props. I never want a character to be a prop.
I think it's fair to say I'm attracted to playing characters who are rather intense.
Actors play different characters in every project they do. Though it has nothing to do with my craft, the red carpet gives me the opportunity to show who I really am and be myself.
Like, on the 'Parks And Rec' set, I still feel like I'm a guest star. Being a fan of the show, it's really surreal to be on the set and see that it's not real, and getting to know the actors and they're not their characters.
I shy away from plot structure that depends on the characters behaving in ways that are going to eventually be explained by their childhood, or by some recent trauma or event. People are incredibly complicated. Who knows why they are the way they are?
That's what politics is. It's the story of what's happening, what does it mean, what's the conclusion, who are the interesting characters?
I had this very strict rule when I began auditioning that I wasn't gonna do a thicker accent, because it was like, 'I can't tell if it's supposed to be funny because he talks funny.' And now I feel like there are certain characters that I could play that could involve doing a thicker accent, as long as it's specific to that character.
One of my favorite things about the DC Universe, growing up as a reader, was just how big it was and just how many characters and superheroes there were. And how many odd characters there were.
People thought the storyline and characters for 'X-Files' made it a 'dark' show, but I never saw it that way. I always thought Mulder and Scully were the light in dark places.
I like to play a wide range of characters. The more they're unlike me, the better I like it.
I've been very lucky with the roles that I've played in that they were wonderful roles for women. They're incredible, flawed characters that I really gravitate toward. I just never want anybody to be able to put me in a box.
I've learned a lot with every character, everything from being a cop, to a lawyer to a tattoo artist. And underneath that stuff, I've been really able to find myself through the characters. It's served as a cheap form of emotional therapy.
It seems to me that most people are interested in reading about characters who are richer than they are.
Our amour fou with 'The Sopranos' is headed for long-term parking, like so many of its most memorable characters. We'll never see a show like this again.
Deadpool was always one of my favorite characters because of the way he handles all kinds of situations. His style and humor make him the perfect antihero.
I wanted to play incredibly challenging, multifaceted characters. Because we are all a puzzle.
I am drawn to characters so full of internal contradictions. Idi Amin was one. I loved writing him.
As long as it comes across, the characters are well-served, the stories are good, and people like it, that's it for me. I'm a happy guy.
People want to see comedies where characters aren't sacrificed for the jokes.
I suppose I've got a reputation for playing quite extreme characters and making them quite believable.
The fact that we are playing Latinos does not mean that you have to be shouting 'fiesta,' 'taco,' or talking in the same way most Latin characters do in American television.
If you have an extreme character, you need normal characters to contrast them. Sherlock Holmes certainly needed a Dr. Watson. And Pippi Longstocking, who supposedly inspired Lisbeth Salander, needed Tommy and Annika, the normal middle-class neighbors.
Usually, when you get early versions of scripts, they are not very good. I found 'Borgen' amazing from the very first read-through because of how fast-paced and gripping it was. It felt more international because of the way it didn't dwell on the characters' personal lives as many Danish shows used to, but still, nobody thought it would travel.
I'd say Rob Reiner's 'When Harry Met Sally' is my all-time favorite. It made me realize there's a way of telling a story where the audience is so in love with the characters that they forget you're even telling a story.
For me, it is important to pick up characters which I can relate to. Or I recall an incident in my life or tap into my innermost emotions and try to bring that reality on to the screen.
My main problem with fiction is that once my characters get moving, you just have to follow them along and get out of the way of the story, but sometimes they pull me in too many directions, and I need to focus.
I still get up every morning at 4 A.M. I write seven days a week, including Christmas. And I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don't really care how many books I've sold.
I have minor characters who are Asian-American, and I've been using them throughout my career, but they've never taken center stage, they've never been really powerful, they've never expressed some of the experiences I had growing up in the U.S. Johnny Tam is the first one.
Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.
Soils and national characters differ, but fairy tales are the same in plot and incidents, if not in treatment.
I always resented books that tried to teach a lesson, where the characters are too good: They don't swear, they tell their mothers everything.
It's cruel to compare two actors working with two different filmmakers on two different characters.
I'm always sorry to finish a book, to let go of characters I love, people I've struggled to understand for years, people who evolve before me.
To me, it seems like both 'Brief Interviews' and 'The Office' deal with characters that see themselves differently than the world sees them.
