I'm not interested in playing characters who see the world through my prism; I think the journey of understanding any character is to see how they tick and how they differ from you.
You put books out into the world, and people form their own visuals and images and attachments to characters; those characters become part of them, and they have their feelings about them.
I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me.
You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.
Well, I think it can be quite helpful to be working on a character who actually existed, historically. Of course, you might have material to study and help you create the character.
If you fall in love with a character, then you are actually falling in love with the author that wrote the character. Therefore, you could conclude that if you are said author, you are in love with yourself.
The advice that I usually give to young actors is that if you can create a character for the stage and keep that character fresh for at least 6 months that means you're doing the show eight times a week.
Novels usually evolve out of 'character.' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an aesthetic coherence.
It's strange to look back over a full season. Our characters have accrued all these memories, but so have we, the actors. And sometimes the character memories and the actor memories bleed into each other.
Everything I've ever learned about acting - and I went to theater school - was about playing what the character wants and throwing yourself fully into going after what the character wants.
When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?'
I'm Dr. David Hanson, and I build robots with character. And by that, I mean that I develop robots that are characters, but also robots that will eventually come to empathize with you.
If you do a character that resonates enough, people are always going to see you as that character. It will just be up to me to make choices where I can flex other muscles.
I won't sacrifice my characters morals/intentions/motives for the sake of what I believe is right or wrong. If the action fits the character it will be written. That's that.
If, at the end of the day, I can look back and see pictures of all the characters I've played, and there's a smorgasbord of weirdos and interesting, odd, different characters, I'd be so happy.
I don't really try to judge any character that I play, afterwards I figure it out, but while I'm working on the character, I have to find something in them to relate to.
Pixar's short films convinced Disney that if the company could produce memorable characters within five minutes, then the confidence was there in creating a feature film with those abilities in story and character development.
Theater people say you are either a comedian or a tragedian, and I'm a tragedian. And the vexing, dark characters, the ones where I don't understand their pain or their anguish, they are the characters that appeal to me.
In 'Out of the Dark,' I'm talking about my own life. I'm not talking as a character or speaking as a character. I was not as free as when I write fiction.
It's hard to know whether certain characters come to life or not, they either come to have their own life or they don't. I've written many things in which the characters just remain inert.
You know, the character of Isabelle in 'Love Crime' is the only character I feel the furthest from. I have nothing to share with her, so it was really difficult. Being an actor of composition is something, but you always base yourself on something yo...
