People don't understand how much time and work it takes to make somebody laugh, and how hard it is to write a script, to put together the story, the characters. When everyone laughs simultaneously, there's no greater feeling.
Well, it was very interesting to play a character and stretch it over such a long time - 12 episodes. I had never done a TV show before, so week to week it was unclear what we would be asked to do.
I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.
I think by that time I knew where Chewie was going, and he left me to do what was called for, because the character had been well established. You know, it was like putting on a second skin by that time.
The same basic tools we've used for thousands of years to connect with people, to draw them in and to hold their attention will always work, even if we're telling our stories 140 characters at a time.
Being nice doesn't necessarily mean you're weak. You can be nice and be strong at the same time. That's a character trait that we need more in Washington.
'Fringe' was the first time I realized that I could ever man up in a character and make this transition from being a boy or a young man into actually being a man.
I'm not like a champion of profanity. I write what I hear, and the characters that I write, that's how they talk. That's how I talk a lot of the time. So I'm not trying to advance a social cause.
The film was made in 1973. It was a golden time for people to experiment without risking, for example, AIDS. Today one has to be so much more careful and I don't think a character like that could exist now.
I enjoy working on a series and having a long stretch of time to get to know and connect with my cast and crew. It also gives me the ability to play a character over the span of countless hours of television.
I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.
The characters I've played have been mostly violent, and I'm so far from being violent or aggressive. I spend a lot of time watching 'Fireman Sam' with my three-year-old son Louis.
The thing about Hitchcock which is quite extraordinary for a director of that time, he had a very strong sense of his own image and publicizing himself. Just a very strong sense of himself as the character of Hitchcock.
I decided that, if I were to write a teen series, I'd want to set it in a place that was familiar to me - Manhattan, where I'd grown up - and I'd model the characters on myself and my friends.
I never practice before, I never work hours on a script. I just choose my characters and trust them, and after that, it's about the director taking your hand.
I left 'Dr Who' after 18 months, as my character was going nowhere. In truth, I wished I had never gone into it. Afterwards, all the scripts that came my way were for 15-year olds.
Jason: I'm bored with sitting around. I'm a dramatic character. I need forward motion.
As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
I'm very excited to see where the characters and their relationships go. But in the end, it really boils down to the people who have more power than me, who control the money.
Character is greater than talent, genius, fame, money, friends - there is nothing to compare with it. A man may have all these and yet remain comparatively useless - be unhappy - and die a bankrupt in soul.
When I look back at my childhood on the Ayrshire coast, I recall a basic devotion to the idea that human nature and national character are as unknowable as the weather's rationale.
