We started getting the script to different people and we were in the business of trying to fund it so we could get it off and running, and all the characters and sets designed and everything.
I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.
Meeting everyone you wanted to know in the small surf industry, I saw how the surf trade was made up of characters that not only surfed, but were able to develop a business out of their relationship with their product and the ocean.
We're all on a journey. The average American switches professions four times. I'm lucky to be in a business where I can change the character I am playing every couple of months.
With TV, you get on a show and you're there for 11 years playing the same character. I would pull my hair out. Yes, the money is good. But I'm really not in this business to chase dollars.
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.
Now, admittedly, Twitter can be entertaining on occasion, as it turns out that 140 characters offers a great chance to be misunderstood - and an even greater chance one will expose his inner troglodyte.
I also really liked playing Mr. Tumnus in 'Narnia'. I got to play my favorite character in children's literature, which I loved. You don't get the chance to do that in other jobs.
When I did 'The Social Network', David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome. I thought that was really cool because I think he's really cool.
Cool? Am I cool? I don't know, but I hope my characters are cool, in the sense of iconic. That's my job, at its very essence.
The cool thing about pro wrestling is we do a lot more acting as far as characters in general than MMA. I know a lot of people like the MMA fighters because they like the rugged look.
I think it's important that we have strong, female characters in movies now, which can really leave an impression on people - especially young people - and that they're not 'sexy' or 'cool.'
Films are really cool because, every couple months, or however many times you can get a job because there's a lot of luck involved in that, you're playing a different character.
Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes and always count their change when it is handed to them.
If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character, would you slow down? Or speed up?
We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.
Changes have taken place since year one. When Caruso left, that was a big change. We've been able to adapt nicely. It's given us new opportunities for different characters and story lines.
Every film you're commissioned to write is all about an arc; usually, the arc is that the world creates a change in the character, usually for the better. To not have an arc, the messages and ideas in the film became more prominent.
I'm very, very leery of nonfiction books where they change timeframes and use - what do they call those things? - composite characters. I don't think that's right.
Most importantly, nothing has happened to change my conviction that freedom and the love of liberty remain the essential defining attributes of our national character as a people.
Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life... I live for the present always. I accept this risk. I don't deny the past, but it's a page to turn.
