Character Quotes

As an actor, there was that freedom of not having to worry about lights or marks or other people. It was just going out there and having fun with the character.

Keep your character several steps ahead of your talent

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

It is always character first and story second.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place.

Every actor wants to have a character that changes, that has some kind of movement, that gets from point A to point B, that doesn't just supply one note.

And from my character's point-of-view in Ravenous, he had been collected by Robert Carlyle's character, he had become infected by this ravenous, cannibalistic power, and he was making the best of it.

New York is the greatest character actor ever. Any film that is shot in New York is elevated by the city.

I do have characters who are more well known than I am, which suits me fine.

Expressing political opinion can be a powerful way to establish a character's voice when writing fiction.

No matter who the characters are, you can strip them down and find small universal truths.

Writers know - especially new writers - [that] a lot of it [creative process] is the prewriting stage, the talking, brainstorming, the narrative arc and the character sketches.

We can have the final word on hate, neglect, disease and all the other insidious characters that still script their way into our stories...for now, but not forever.

What is their potential for evil; what is their potential for wickedness? That's the only time that those characters become interesting to watch.

Oftentimes what happens is that the writer understands one character, but they don't understand the other one, and the other one ends up not being written as well.

My first two novels were set in the past, and that freed me up in a lot of ways; it allowed me to find my way into my story and my characters through research.

I want to play a character I've never been before-a crazy serial killer like Charlize Theron in Monster. I'd love to have to shave my head.

I'm always terrified before every movie because I haven't found her [the character], and I don't get it. [Without acting, I'd have] become a nurse.

I do have some kind of gravitational pull towards young characters with more responsibility than they should have.

For me, one of the most important things I look for in an actor is whether we can converse. Do we have a similar ability to discuss a character?

I don't even like to show midriff - it's my characters who are always showing midriff.

If I was like some of the characters I played, I'd probably be dead by now.

My publisher feels that my readers are loyal to the voice of my stories, the characters I'm creating.

We want to be able to let the audience get to know these folks. One of the things about The Avengers, over the last 50 years, is the fun of changing up the gang and bringing in new characters.

Self-promotion has never been a point, and I'm incredibly inept at self-promotion. Talking about myself is a little less inspiring than talking about the character.

I don't like characters that are left being jerks at the end of the movie.

I never want to sort of put all the cards on the table all at once, because that's somehow there's always a journey to go on. There's always something to be revealed, in my mind, about characters.

When you play a character with power and energy, people lock into that and go, "Oh, this must be the guy."

One of the great things that you should never do that I learned from John Malkovich is to never judge your characters.

I like to play unpredictable characters, and I like to be unpredictable in what movie I'll do.

I don't really think there's much difference between a character actor and a leading man besides aesthetics.

I like repressed characters. That gives me a lot of freedom to make a lot of different choices through subtleties.

I think there's a great connection between these two characters for sure. I mean, I don't know if she's coming over for dinner on the Barton ranch.

That’s what makes a character interesting from an actor’s perspective - the more screwed up, the better.

Excellence is never an accident.

I love inventing worlds and characters and settings and scenarios.

Casting is so important, with any film you do. You have to get actors that you believe will fulfill the promise of the characters that are on the page.

Any actor who is being honest will admit there's always a small or large part of the real you in every character. It's impossible not to have that.

In New York City there are interesting characters and there are interesting stories. There's a story on every street corner. I love it. I think that's what really attracts me to making films.

I do characters. I believe in that. I think people are interesting. Now, everybody that you meet in New York City thinks that their life is a movie.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.

When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.

In 'Zombieland,' it was such a freewheeling plot it almost didn't matter what the characters were doing scene to scene as long as there was a consistent banter.

I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story.

The movies that are really big, at least in my experience, oftentimes don't have characters that I feel as personally connected to.

A lot of times the character's experience is not in accordance with the tone of the movie and it's not really my job to account for the tone of the movie. That's the director's job.

I tend to prefer the smaller movies because they shoot more efficiently and so you're are able to maintain that momentum of the character a little more easily.

Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. And in the end, faith will not disappoint. Faith, hope, and dreams will prevail... Our time has come. Our time has come. Our time has come.