I was given the ability to create stories and characters. That's my part of the long chain of writers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, and a host of others who eventually deliver literature to the world. I want to do for others what Eudo...
Acting is a job you can learn a lot in. You get to play lots of different characters with different professions and different backgrounds; they come from different places than you do, so it's really fun when you're immersing yourself in that world of...
I've got to write about my character every day. I've got to find out where he lives, what bus he catches to school, and stuff like that. You've got to know every little thing about him so when you do it, it feels natural.
There are certain things in 'Twilight'... As much as I'm proud of that movie and I do like it, I feel like maybe I brought too much of myself to the character. I feel like I really know Bella now. But most readers feel like they know Bella because it...
I often hear actors say during their interviews: 'I want to play a crazy person, a murderer, or someone who's on edge.' But that question scares me. I mean, of course there are characters I'd like to play, but I can't really say specifically who they...
Once I have a hook I think has potential - enough to spin out more than a hundred thousand words, then I start turning my attention to characters. Who are these people? Why did this thing happen to them? But the hook always comes first.
I just like Forrest Gump. Maybe I'm a little smarter than him, maybe I'm not. Probably because of the whole Southern aspect of his character and for some reason I always wind up on the better end of all deals... I've just kind of got the old silly bo...
I think it's necessary to identify with anything - with any character you play, there's got to be something in common, so you can link up to that person, even if it's like one tiny thing. But it's equally fun to play somebody completely different, an...
In film you can use images exclusively and narrate a whole story very quickly, but you don't always so easily find the form in cinema to dig deeper into human thoughts and emotions. And in a novel you can much more easily express a character's inner ...
Sometimes standing alone makes you stronger than hiding in a group. When you choose to stand when those close to you are sitting down, it speaks volumes about your integrity and character. It's when those who stand alone come together that the opposi...
The pitch, timbre, volume, speed, and cadence of your voice, the speed with which you speak, and even the way you modulate pitch and loudness, are all hugely influential factors in how convincing you are and how people judge your state of mind and ch...
In all our perceptions, from vision to hearing, to the pictures we build of people's character, our unconscious mind starts from whatever objective data is available to us - usually spotty - and helps to shape and construct the more complete picture ...
I think that playing characters far away from who I am as a person is a lot more fun and a lot more exciting, and you can play with it a lot more because it's not you and it's so far from you, so that's very liberating as far as that goes.
Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.'
I really liked drama and being in plays, so when I was playing a character onstage and I could act like somebody else, then I wasn't scared or nervous, but I didn't like meeting new people when I had to be myself. That was scary.
To me, 'Educating Rita' is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.
In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against one another, in the final analysis the thing that will strike you the most, is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish.... but who would go to the greatest lengths ...
I have always loved contemporary dance, but it has always been a bit of a mystery to me. But choreography is very much like what I do when you are putting characters in frame on the page. It's so impressive what they do with their bodies. It's like p...
Here is the operating motto of the Obama White House: 'So let it be written, so let it be done!' Like Yul Brynner's Pharaoh Ramses character in Cecil B. DeMille's 'The Ten Commandments,' the demander in chief stands with arms akimbo issuing daily edi...
I spent lunchtime in a grave during the filming of 'Bloody Mama.' When you're younger, you feel that's what you need to do to help you stay in character. When you get older, you become more confident and less intense about it - and you can achieve th...
If you're writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can't not write about 9-11; you can't not integrate it. My main character's view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn't have to take over, but it has to be ac...
