Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder, I try to weave an air of awe and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy.
For characters where, in a comic, I’d avoid using screen tone because it’s such a bother, I’d deliberately use it in animation in order to highlight their individual characteristics.
But I guess I like playing flawed guys ’cause it gives a place for the characters to go.
That’s just part of being in ‘X-Men.’ There’s, like, 20 main characters, and 15 of them are household names, so obviously you’re happy for anything you can get.
When you’re writing for a game – even if you’re using very well known characters like Batman and his villains who lend themselves to many different interpretations – you have to keep in mind that you’re writing for a different medium. Things are a bit more straightforward than it is for a feature film or a TV show.
If you’re doing gags, I think it’s important to have characters who are as strong-willed and impactful as possible.
I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 – for albums, anyway.
I type even faster than I talk. I’m very proud of that. I type so fast. And I have to because the characters are living in real time and I’ve got to keep up with them. It’s a miracle they even give me a royalty.
Do you remember ‘Super Saiyan 3?’ I forgot about it, and I thought that was ‘Super Saiyan 2,’ even though I created those characters.
I like the idea of bringing cartoon characters to life… and although the Americans have already attempted this, their culture is not sufficiently humane to make it work.
The easiest way for readers to connect with characters and feel sympathy is to make the character entertaining, sympathetic and likeable.
Once the world has been created, the fantasy author still has to bring the story’s characters to life and unfold a gripping plot. That’s why good fantasy is such a hard act to bring off.
The Big Chill is one of those things that everybody can identify with. Between eight characters, they can pick somebody who’s somewhat like them.
With action films, it’s great if it’s not just driven by action, but by a good story and interesting characters, as well. Though, there’s nothin’ like kicking butt!
In westerns, you meet a hardy bunch of characters. There is no jealousy on such pictures.
With actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Harrison Ford, what made them such icons is that even in dramatic movies, their characters had a sense of humor.
Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.
I’m grateful that so many viewers have related to characters I’ve played. I think many in the audience see themselves in my characters or feel like the characters are similar to their friends or sisters.
If I hadn’t left South Africa, I felt I was at risk of being pigeonholed. I looked around and saw actors who, 10 to 15 years into their careers, were still playing stereotypical Afrikaans characters, stereotyped Indian characters. That was not something that I wanted for myself.
I believe showing various characters is my job and I try to take as many challenges as possible in my dramas and films.
I especially don’t like the graphic violence against women and children often depicted in novels such as ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ and others. I’m not sure if it’s being done just to entertain or whether it really is necessary for the characters involved.
It is fun to explore these kick-butt characters.
Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.
Until ‘Moonlight,’ I had never seen one black man cook for another on screen. But I wanted the characters to be free of ‘groundbreaking’ or ‘never before.’ We were ascribed those things. They weren’t the point.
Both my mom and my dad have always included me in intelligent conversations about people, about characters, about how people work. My dad and my mom still read all scripts that I find interesting. I send them an e-mail, and I’m like, ‘Okay, I have my eye on this,’ or whatever.
Many great horror stories are period pieces and English actors have a facility for historic characters.
One of the amazing things about ‘Seven Samurai’ is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you’ve got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.
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 still get up every morning at 4 A.M. I write seven days a week, including Christmas. And I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don’t really care how many books I’ve sold.
But I also wanted to give them an intelligent emotional journey, without having to suspend reality – to be able to look at those characters and see reasons for the relationships and why what happens happens.
Psychology is the science of the intellects, characters and behavior of animals including man.
If the characters are compelling, readers will follow anywhere.
I think it’s important that ‘Star Wars’ characters speak universally, to kids and to people.
I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don’t necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.
For me, the performance was always playing different people. And so when I got older, was no longer the romantic leading movie star, it became more and more interesting for me, the characters I played, you know?
I’m much more low-key than the characters I’ve played.
Most superhero characters we see these days are from foreign countries. I would like to play a superhero that shows off Korean power.
I love the powerful woman who’s complicated. There’s no push to be one thing or another thing. It’s all human. That’s what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible.
When I do a voiceover now, there are always a few people I’ve borrowed bits off, whether it’s their hats or facial hair, who’ll say: ‘That’s so funny; it’s obviously based on this guy.’ You think, ‘It ain’t: it’s you.’ Actors never think characters are based on them.
I tend to play a lot of characters that are 10 or 15 years older than me.
As an actor, I’ve always wanted to do characters that would help me find my connection with others and connect all of us together. You always want the energy of the character, the spirit of the person, to enter you. I’ve been doing this for 26 years and some of the things I’ve done are always with me.
I didn’t want to be trapped in an idea of replicating other ‘Star Trek’ characters; especially Vulcans. But my love and I have Spock paraphernalia all over our house. He’s an omnipresence in our lives, we adore him.
What makes characters real are details, and if you’re crafting a person from scratch, you’re probably not going to pay as much attention to a question like, ‘Does this person bite their nails?’
I have played innocent characters that are inherently me, but I have a sensual side, too.
Unlike life, you’ve got more or less complete control over what’s going on in your stories. That’s not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to – they usually have a life of their own if you’ve done your job properly.
The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.
I’m here to play different characters.
I am a better person when I am writing, and I am probably a better mother because I can focus all that laser attention on these characters rather than worrying about my kids.
Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.
I was creating characters early. People didn’t beat me up. I scared them. I hated authority. I could also get people to do things; I was quite the early director. I could make people laugh enough to get their defences down – and then brainwash them.
If you watch the show and the characters don’t look at each other while they’re talking, the actors probably aren’t getting along.
There’s a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they’re interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they’re just a mess. It’s good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.
I love the TV show, and if you make a bad movie it means you’ve soiled it. Just like if we made an advert. We were offered so many times and I’d say, look, this is the good thing, and you can’t compromise that, because then you compromise the integrity of the characters.
The two biggest characters I’ve created are probably the biggest things I’ve ever done for a role.
I don’t wanna be like somebody that just depicts black characters where drugs and guns are just a majority of what they have to do.
