Courage is the collective strength of heart, mind and soul, but the character plays the key role.
I'm constantly thinking about the role, and there's an infinite amount of questions you can ask yourself about a character to the point that it's hard to find the boundaries of when to not work.
I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.
There are so many female roles - particularly for young women - that are just somebody's girlfriend or somebody's daughter, or that are accessories to the main story rather than being three-dimensional characters.
People were confused by me, and at first I was auditioning a lot for the crazy characters or the victim, someone who'd been attacked. Which is great, because usually those are the best acting roles.
I guess the characters I play may be at the more destructive edge of the spectrum, more damaged or whatever, but I find a lot of female roles uninteresting.
I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.
Inspector Rebus is a great character, so when the opportunity came up to revive the role for 'BBC Children in Need,' and really have a bit of fun with it, I was happy to take part.
There aren't enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the 'poor heartbroken girl.'
I want to play Martin Luther King. That is absolutely a role and a character who is important to the landscape of the world that I really want to play.
I think any role you need to play not so much transforms but I like to think of it as understanding the psychology of another character.
What happens with every role, you have to trick yourself, you have to creatively find ways to explore the mental state of your character.
I don't exactly set out to only play creepy characters, it's just that a lot of those roles come my way.
It could get saturated or monotonous if I would do the same characters again and again. That is why, to save myself from that feeling, I take time out to choose roles that excite me.
I never want to play the same character twice. I like to do different roles. I have fun with that.
Any sort of role requires a certain amount of research and embodiment of the character and psychological investigation.
You've got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume - they need to know who the character is, what they're like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.
My role is Katara: in 'The Last Airbender,' I'm a water bender from the southern water tribe, and my character is really strong but also loving.
I think if an actor is right for a role, casting sees that, and the words that are on the page, depending on how it's written, can really help your character develop.
I never get the tall, blonde, glamorous roles because I'm not tall, blonde and glamorous. I'm more the wee, disturbing characters because of the way I look or sound.
Being a correspondent on 'The Daily Show' is some combination of doing a character and doing stand-up. It's a juggling act to find a balance between being you and playing a role.
