I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.
I'm very comfortable writing in the first person; it dives into the character in a way that's difficult if you're writing in the third person.
In 'There Will Be Blood,' my character was someone who was an actor himself almost. He had a rehearsed quality about him. He was a performance artist in a way.
Bad guys are complicated characters. It's always fun to play them. You get away with a lot more. You don't have a heroic code you have to live by.
We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.
The one thing I could do was voices and impersonations and weird characters, and there was really no call for that, except on Saturday Night Live.
I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me.
Don't resist the urge to burn down the stronghold, kill off the main love interest or otherwise foul up the lives of your characters.
Actors will never be replaced. The thought that somehow a computer version of a character is going to be something people prefer to look at is a ludicrous idea.
Whatever you may think of Mrs. Clinton as a character, I think she believes quite strongly in public service.
I'm interested in getting deep into a person's consciousness and doing so in ways in which the narrator is secondary to the character's own thoughts.
You can draw the character out of pets, and you can make them your friends, but they are animals, and they have to be allowed to live the lives of animals.
For me, I always have to establish a reality for the character. In very actor-y terms, you just have to understand his reality.
There is a shy side to me that evaporates when I play on stage, and I like that. I think it's another facet of my character, and I need to do that.
Writing therapy is my form of healing. Try and detach yourself from painful memories by infusing characters and then stepping back.
The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.
I envision the script as a story in my mind, memorize the entire thing and have it play out. It helps me figure out where my character needs to go.
I can't bear shopping. I can choose clothes for my characters, but not for myself. I've got no dress sense. Or I've lost it.
It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.
You know, we have to take these characters - who, granted, have their separate personalities but, on a lot of levels, are pretty two-dimensional - and make them into people with flaws, with insecurities.
I often have scripts sent to me with allegedly Scottish characters where I end up telling them, 'You're going to have to rethink this whole thing!'
