When I take on a role, all I tend to do is get to know the script and ask millions of questions, and keep fine tuning what I think the character is trying to say.
'On the Road' is another one of those, a film in which the audience has a very clear idea of who they think your character is, so you know you are asking for it. But that's the challenge.
I start drawing, and eventually the characters involve themselves in a situation. Then in the end, I go back and try to cut out most of the preachments.
Once you're sort of pigeonholed into something, it's quite difficult to get out of it. I have no aversion to playing a gay character again, but it would definitely have to be the right role.
I've written short stories from male perspectives before, and I've never had a problem with it as long as I've understood the character's emotions and motivations.
I don't pick my roles based on what clothes I have to wear. I pick roles because of the character I have to portray, and the public have enjoyed seeing me in those roles.
My feeling with my characters is that they all have a right to feel exactly the way that they do, so I never censor them. I don't judge them.
On 'True Blood,' the character's name is Sookie Stackhouse, and my name is Suki Waterhouse. So, I get people saying, 'Oh, I thought we were meeting the girl from True Blood.'
My books usually end where they began. I try to bring characters back to a point that is familiar but different because of the growth that they have gone through.
Testing of self is a regular part of our own lives, so it seems natural to make it a part of the lives of my characters, as well, albeit on a much different level.
I find that comedy is my specialty, but drama is slowly starting to move up in that rank. I've always liked playing a character that has depth and that I'm able to bring my own niche to.
There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A, B, C may read our natures.
In our post-Freudian world, it is no longer a goal to become people of character who live out a God-ordained ideal of selfhood.
You have the wookie character, which is one of the biggest aliens in 'Defiance.' These guys are just walking about with these mechanical faces on, and it actually looks insane. The amount of diversity of all the aliens in the town is quite unbelievab...
John Woo is a very nice and kind person; he gives almost no direction at all, trusting me to come up with the character. But when I think of him, I think of explosions!
...required for good fiction: character, conflict, change through time. And if you're really blessed, you get resolution. But life doesn't usually work out that way.
Creating a character and living truthfully through her is a whole different ball game. It's all part of the same person but it's a much newer medium for me.
The horror aspect, the scary parts, are easy for me. I mean, I can get into that pretty easy, because I get scared. You have to invest yourself in these characters.
Harrison Ford - one of my favorite actors - has a wonderful sense of character and depth and uniqueness to him, yet he's able to just deliver the lines without putting any English on it.
You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.
I have three assistants, but there isn't a head assistant. All the important drawings I do myself. Every single character is also done by me.
