I deeply respect literature and expect to gain insight from a book and to identify emotionally with its characters. I therefore avoid reading suspense novels or science fiction.
A. B. Yehoshua
As an actor, the ambition is to play interesting characters. And in the indie genre world, the budgets are low. That allows me, as an actor, not to have a financial value behind my name, to justify me being in these bigger parts for these types of movies.
A. J. Bowen
I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are.
A. S. Byatt
I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think them, that is what I do, I feel them with the sympathetic neurons and I work out with my brain what it is that I am trying to write about, or I can't do it.
But I guess I like playing flawed guys 'cause it gives a place for the characters to go.
Aaron Eckhart
The animators working with these 3D models, they're artists, right? They're great at what they do. They're artful in how they move characters about.
Aaron Ehasz
On 'Avatar', I learned that it's worth taking some risks and doing some weird little things with characters or having an off-joke here and there, even if it's only for 5 percent of the audience.
The characters don't all have to be likable, and they don't all have to be hateable. As long as it's interesting and you connect to them and they resonate with you and you want to find out what happens and it feels authentic, then we have something.
I always gravitate towards characters that are so opposite of me.
Aaron Paul
If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable.
Aaron Sorkin
I do not speak through my characters; it's not a ventriloquist act.
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.
Aaron Stanford
I try to pick characters that I find interesting and complex and that I feel I can bring something of myself to.
You always take a little bit back with you at the end of the day. I always put a little bit of myself into the characters, too. You find parallels, points of connection, things like that. But I'm not an actor who gets so incredibly haunted by my characters that I can't come back.
I'm sure some of the characters in 'X-Men' had a lot of physically demanding stuff to do, but my character's pretty much stand-and-deliver, stand there and throw fire at people. There's no acrobatics or anything.
Matt Weiner is very perceptive; there's something about the rhythms and the way people speak that is very authentic to the actor. But there are qualities that are dissimilar. The characters on 'Mad Men' are struggling with pretty profound unhappiness, but I can tell you this is a happy bunch.
Aaron Staton
People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.
Aasif Mandvi
I've been watching 'The Cosby Show' and 'Roseanne' a lot right now, and those work so well because they're not, like, jokey comedies; they are coming from real characters. We want our show to be like that. A family show.
Abbi Jacobson
Playing different characters in different films helps keep you excited about what you do. It always seems like a whole new adventure.
Abbie Cornish
I'm about my characters.
Abel Ferrara
I am most attracted to characters and stories that I can relate to. The traditional formula of 'larger than life' I never found attractive.
I always pick characters where it's not his muscles or dance skills that help him, because not all of us can look like that. I am more like someone who'd beat up ten guys, not with his muscles, but his strategy.
10 Endradhukulla' is a thriller and the characters are all on the run. The film travels from South India traversing through the North, to the mountains where the climax takes place. Mine is a different kind of character; he is very suave and stylish and only later it is discovered that he is not what he looks like.
I think once you get noticed as an actor you get roles irrespective of the characters you portray.
I guess some characters always remain the same, and Macbeth is one of them.
It's not easy trying to get into the psyche and behaviour patterns, which are far removed from one's own personality. Some intense characters linger long after it's over on screen.
All my characters have their own political thoughts of the world around. If it is not in the script, I put it into them so that they become rooted to the local flavour.
I think whenever you transform from normal light-hearted characters, to characters which might be out of your comfort zone or less relatable, that is double the work and commitment required to understand the society that character comes from.
I think writers should create characters who are human and have a character arc of their own.
I always think of my characters as alive human beings and try to generate questions around their life and understand their socio-political background. It was a lot of questioning and reading.
When you are reacting to a good actor, your reactions become better. You get to know what to tone down and how to make yourself believe in those characters.
I'm drawn to scenes in movies where you just see characters turning off lights in a room or putting the groceries away; it's like, 'I understand that.' We all have to get ready for bed, and we all do it in a different way, and yet it's all strangely familiar and strangely human.
Some people look for a certain structure in their lives that they're comfortable with. People who work hard on the road as truckers, people who work hard using their hands. Then there are people who are fortunate enough to have my life, people who play these characters who embody these qualities.
I discovered 'The Shield' back around 2010, when the Archie superheroes were licensed to DC Comics. From there, I went back into the archives and discovered this whole universe of characters, and I was hooked.
For people worried about the Great Recession and the uncertainty of what is coming next, the characters of 'Mad Men' are good company.
On 'Adam Ruins Everything' we do the broadest sketch comedy possible. We do stuff where you can see it immediately and know it's a joke - characters in big silly costumes; here's Uncle Sam and he's twiddling his fingers saying, 'Oh, I'm naughty.'
What's so cool about movies is once you're done with the movie, you put it away and come up with a whole new different idea with different characters and a different world. But in TV, you build these characters, and you build this world, and then you're there for however long you do the show.
There's not one thing that inspires me the most. Me and my friends joke around with each other and hang out so much that whatever makes us laugh really hard makes it into 'Workaholics.' But the characters that I think are funny are guys that are confidently stupid.
I think some of my best theatre training has been in the Marine Corps. Not only meeting a bunch of characters, but growing up. You're in really adult situations at a young age, as far as being in charge of people.
What's so amazing about 'All in the Family' is sometimes an entire act was one camera shot. It was all about characters.
In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism. Every person here is the center of his or her own story. And our job as people and as characters is to find our own motivations and desires, to overcome conflicts and obstacles toward defining ourselves so that we grow and change.
But, in North Korea, it's just the opposite. There's one story. It's written by the Kim regime. And 23 million people are conscripted to be secondary characters. There, as a youth, your aptitude towards certain jobs is measured, and the rest of your life is dictated, whether you'll be a fisherman or a farmer or an opera singer.
There's nothing more fun than mean-spirited characters.
There's nothing more fun to me than new characters and a new world.
My work is always more emotional than I am. My characters say things to each other that I get accused of not being able to say to my girlfriend.
I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.
People have to respond to the characters and respond to the situations that they're in. That said, it still has to be a compelling narrative that drives along and keeps people coming back week after week. So really, with any successful show you could name, there has to be a mysterious blend of both of those.
I'm not comfortable being around too many people. I don't like being out in public too much. I don't like going to bars. I don't like doing celebrity stuff. So most of the characters I play are people who don't always feel comfortable beyond their small circle of friends.
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 think I initially started inventing characters in my songs because I didn't want to write directly about myself. Also, as a kid, I loved all the character names in Beatles songs, like Eleanor Rigby and Lovely Rita and Mean Mr. Mustard and Maxwell and Rocky Raccoon.
