Throughout your whole career, there's a bunch of people you might have to kiss. Say there's this character opposite you, and you might not be into her - or him, personally. You just gotta' do it. That's your job.
Every year, I have to spend another hour working out. Pretty soon I'll be spending eight hours working out just to fit in the costume. I have the feeling that the minute I stop doing the character, boom, Roseanne Barr.
I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I'm really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.
I think I always resented the fact that people thought I was trying to entertain them with my multifaceted, chameleonlike character changes. Although I liked doing that, I wasn't out to fool people and say 'Guess which one is me.'
They really stay just characters to me. I look at them, and I don't see always the same person up there. And hopefully, people will see that too. Because it's very easy to bore people, and that's a killer. So hopefully that won't happen.
You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.
If I was a bad character that got away with murder like we see on other shows, I do not think I would like it because that sends a message that you can do these horrible things and never pay for it.
When I write fiction, I never try to deliver a message; I just want to tell a story. But I admit that I want the story to be memorable and the characters to touch the reader's heart.
As good surgical doctor works on a patient in the theater with varied kinds of surgical instruments, so a true leader also needs a clean bag of leadership characters that vary from task to task. One-way leaders are obvious failures!
In every character that you play... I mean, I don't think I'll ever be the type of actor or performer per se who transforms, you know? Like Claire Danes transforms into Temple Grandin - I'm not gonna do that.
The thing about the performance part... starting with improv and standup, you're starting with yourself as the character, and I don't feel as much like, 'Oh, I'm a vessel for -' I feel like someone who calls themselves an actor is a vessel.
When I started off with Trainspotting, it was the way the characters came to me. That's how they sounded to me. It seemed pretentious to sound any other way. I wasn't making any kind of political statement.
After appearing for eight seasons as a beloved character on 'Supernatural,' it's not surprising that I get most of my recognition on the street from that, and it happens with some frequency. But I'm not a guy who gets recognized often.
I declare I would rather be a kitten and cry, 'Mew!' than live as I see many of my female acquaintances do, tearing each other's characters to pieces, and wearing out their lives in vanity and vexation of spirit.
'Knockemstiff' is a collection of short stories set in the holler of the same name in southern Ohio where I grew up. I tried to link the stories together through the place and some recurring characters.
I before E except after C. Weird? By rebelling against the rules the word itself denotes its very meaning: of strange or extraordinary character, odd, fantastic. I think all writers are weird.
In the acting community in New York we call 'Law & Order' 'grad school,' because everyone eventually does a 'Law & Order.' My first one was in 1995, which was a year after I got out of school. Matthew Blanchard was the character's name.
When my lady and I sit down and watch TV, I find she gets annoyed at characters because they don't do what she would do in the situation. I'm always like, 'Well, she has to do that because that's what the story is.'
If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart.
When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy.
I think for me, the imaginary world was always exciting. I started in New York doing theatre, from having just one person in an audience to performing for a full house. I think I've always enjoyed playing different characters, blending into different...
