My character, Rick Spleen, is a what-if version of me, really, where nothing did quite turn out right and everything else is still around the corner.
Although just being employed as an actor is a big thing, I'm not sure I'd be satisfied playing the same character for 30 years; it's not why I want to do this for a living.
That's the way I will write characters, put a fair amount of myself in them, and then everyone else who was like that person, I will pick and choose.
Fantasy stories will always be popular, as there are always readers who are willing to escape, freely, to the worlds that the authors create, and spend time with the characters we give life to.
Characters who have some kind of free rein on their darker selves are always fun because they've taken the license off. You just get to fill out all the colors.
I don't keep a record of the parts I've played, and I don't compare characters, but maybe I should? I could construct a graphic that grades badness and madness levels? Interesting idea.
Growing up, I was a very shy kid but I felt that being on stage or playing another character would somehow open me up. And I think it did.
With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.
To be honest, when you're running a series and you have an open end, you don't want to limit yourself too much with the choices you've got for a particular character.
I think as an actor you have to be open to your emotions - that's how you tap into other characters. Besides, by being so open I've come to terms with how screwed I am!
I'd like to think I'm not quite so pretentious as to think my characters go off and live their lives once I've written the final page and switched the computer off.
In a series, you really need to stay open-minded. It's not like a play or a film, where you can create and fully commit to your character's back-story.
You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.
But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.
In the prequel we're going to tell about the characters before Left Behind, and the book would end with the rapture instead of start with the rapture like the first one did.
There is a comfort zone of knowing where things are going and having characters in place, but the action gets more and more dramatic and is very challenging to describe.
SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net.
All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.
The dark book has been terribly popular. Dark characters, dysfunction, and all sorts of things from reality that are true in our world.
I don't cry. Well, you know, I think coming from an acting background that's really helped me because I more than anyone know that an actor creates a character.
I think for a lot of people that had seen me do 'Snabba Cash', after watching 'The Killing,' I think they got a sense that I could do different kinds of characters.
