Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that cha...
On so many levels, acting in film and TV is so much the sum of its parts, and somewhere in there, there's an alchemical thing that makes something happen or not - that makes something connect or not. Now, of course you want to make work that people s...
First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the c...
Your work isn't just to learn and say the lines. Your work is to figure out what the chatter in your brain is, that's going on under the lines. It doesn't matter whether you're speaking or not speaking because your mind is working the way your charac...
I've always been fascinated by young women who come to New York. The characters in 'Lipstick Jungle' were once young women who came to New York and we see their early experiences through flashbacks.
I told my agent which women I aspire to have a career like: Frances McDormand, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney and Emma Thompson - character actresses who have something to say. I also said that I loved Madeline Kahn and Jessica Lange.
I enjoy stories about thin women - I read them frequently. I enjoy them; I root for those characters, but I always feel like there are enough of them out there and there are enough of them in the spotlight.
Tessa craned her head back to look at Will. “You know that feeling,” she said, “when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing tight around the characte...
My fingers combed through my dark hair, short and straight, landing in choppy, uneven ends nearly level with my chin. The color reminded me of every evil character in any fairytale. It seemed all were characteristically black; black hair, black eyes,...
At their core, Tiger Eyes, Forever..., and Sally J. Freeman are all books about teenage issues, but to an adult reader, the parents' story lines seem to almost overshadow their daughters. I'm bringing an entirely new set of experiences to these novel...
But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?" You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morni...
There are three types of actions: purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous. Characters, to be immediate and apprehensible, must be presented by all three.' Katin looked toward the front of the car. The captain gazed through the curving plate that lapped ...
Great artistic works are often based on solving several psychological problems simultaneously. In literature this is often accomplished by splitting apart the conflict and assigning each aspect to a different character. Marjie Rynearson, for instance...
Heavy is the head that holds the pen of creation. We construct these characters from nothing, molding them from our imaginations. We give them hopes and dreams and unique personalities until they feel so real you’re mind believes it must be so. We ...
Barbara: These are those four outlines submitted by Universal for an hour series. You needn't bother to read them; I'll tell them to you. The first one is set at a large Eastern law school, presumably Harvard. The series is irresistibly entitled "The...
Young Chas Tenenbaum: [about Margot's play] Well, what'd you think, Dad? Royal: Didn't seem believable to me. [to Eli] Royal: Why are you wearing pajamas? Do you live here? Young Richie Tenenbaum: He has permission to sleep over. Young Chas Tenenbaum...
He was one of those characters who felt that a weak handshake could somehow damage his authority, which meant that every handshake had to bloody hurt.
There is no difference between the person who wishes he can change his bad character and did not and the person who never wished for it. Wishes alone don’t change the world!
How often you impress people when you have nothing and how often you oppress them when you have everything is what defines your real character!
It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires
I can write about all of these bizarre and funny characters in my book, "Diggin' Elroy," because I know them better than anyone else. I have a little bit of all of them in me.
