Quotes about: character

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.
– Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.
– Amy Waldman
If, then, knowledge be power, how much more power to we gain through the agency of faith, and what elevation must it give to human character.
– Matthew Simpson
If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.
– Steve Coogan
If you look at the game and everything, it's not quite like looking at an animated film, because that's total character. This, this is really movement, but it's got funny little things if you look for the humor. They're actually getting to the character.
– Don Bluth
If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously.
– Jerry Garcia
If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.
– Charles Horton Cooley
If there is a book that the script came from you have to read it, you have to see what you can get out of it: mood, back story and things that may not even be in the film. They kick off your imagination and broaden the character, I think.
– Miranda Otto
If the character is true, the movie will fall into place. Or at least that's what you hope.
– Ryan Gosling
I've learned through experience of playing different characters, some of whom were jerks, that when you play a character who is pretentious or obnoxious, in any way, it's important to knock them down a peg.
– Jonah Hill
I've gone very far, far away, but my character keeps me close to home.
– Fran Drescher
I've done some TV and I've done a lot of theater, obviously, and the last character I played on Broadway was a very fast-talking broad. I'm used to learning material and words.
– Sutton Foster
I've been acting my whole life. I have this huge imagination! I'm a dancer and my mom's a dance teacher, and I was always performing and entertaining people. I'd go to see live theatre or a movie, and I'd become the main character for a few days afterwards. I loved being somebody new for a temporary amount of time.
– Natasha Calis
I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.
– Robert Duvall
I'm very much into the costuming of any character that I portray and it's one of the great things about making movies is it's a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about for this instance your character's costume and what that might tell about your character.
– Jeff Bridges
I'm trying to figure myself out through my movies. Whether it's big stuff like what we're doing here, or little stuff like, 'Why aren't I happier?' With every film I feel like I'm apologising for something. I feel I'm most successful when I'm looking for something that embarrasses me about my character that I'd like to expose.
– Jason Reitman
I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction, and then, yes, you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you, and it's all caught on film or onstage.
– Ellen Barkin
I'm just really thankful to have the chance to portray a character you don't see every day.
– Regina King
I'm getting a lot of stick because my character in 'Young Dracula' wanted to be vampire, so now that I am a vampire, everyone's like, 'You finally did it!' But it's cool and I loved doing 'Young Dracula.' That show's finished and I don't know why it ended, so it was brilliant to go into 'Being Human,' which is like the adult version of it.
– Craig Roberts
I'm crazy about Grant: his character, his nature, his science in fighting and everything else. But I don't like the idea that he never accepted the blame for anything, always found someone else to blame for any mistake that was ever made, including blaming Prentiss for Shiloh.
– Shelby Foote
I'm an actor. I try to play a character in a really cool story, the very best I can.
– Matthew Fox
I'm a video game fan, and I always thought it would be cool to be able to control a character.
– Shia LaBeouf
I'm a better person in a relationship, and I'm a happier person. I need to come home at the end of the day and have it not be about me and my freaking hair and makeup and character motivations anymore. And I think my work is more inspired when home is safe and sound and solid, because what I do for a living is so bananas and so insecure.
– Ginnifer Goodwin
I'll tell you what I really enjoy. We all go to the movies, we all watch television, we know what they're about, how they work. When the main character is a cop or a spy, it's very exciting, but I also very much enjoy when the main characters are nobodies - a trucker.
– Nathan Fillion
I'd love to pop back into 'Being Human' as Adam. I love the character so much. I've never really played a character like that. I'm always playing the geek, so to play a kid who is very energetic when he wants to be, and who is always trying to get the girls, was really cool.
– Craig Roberts
I'd love to do a romantic comedy. And perhaps, if the character was right and I had a good gut instinct, a Bollywood movie. And I'd love to direct. One day. I'm learning a lot on the set of 'The Good Wife.'
– Archie Panjabi
I would stay on, but 'General Hospital' honestly doesn't seem to want that relationship with this character at the moment. They want little short doses during sweeps periods.
– Genie Francis
I would say that playing this character has caused me to think about a lot of things. He's always questioning himself and trying to get back to something he lost touch with and trying to find forgiveness. Everybody struggles with these things to some extent in their life.
– Lee Tergesen
I worked on my voice for Sweet Dreams, but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.
– Jessica Lange
I wish I had played team sports. I think every kid should. Teamwork builds character - teaches people about leadership and cooperation.
– Mo Rocca
I will not say that women have no character rather, they have a new one every day.
– Heinrich Heine
I went to a military school between the ages of six and 12 and later into the air force. You learn discipline and strength of character.
– Larry Hagman
I was thinking that when I have children, that I should always dress as a character for them, so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella. It would be totally messed up!
– Gwen Stefani
I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.
– Vin Diesel
I was in two episodes playing Christopher Reeve's character's emissary. They wanted to have my character announce Dr Swan's death, which I thought was exploitative.
– Margot Kidder
I wanted to show how a man of sensitive and noble character, born for religion, comes to throw off the orthodoxies of his day and moment, and to go out into the wilderness where all is experiment, and spiritual life begins again.
– Mary Augusta Ward
I want to find the candidates who understand the principles of American exceptionalism and have the character, the courage, and the confidence to actually lead the greatest nation in the world.
– Jim DeMint
I want to establish a wide range and play all kinds of parts. It's that sort of acting career I really respect. I like to turn a sharp left from whatever I've done before because that keeps me awake. That's why I want to be an actor - I don't want to play endless variations on one character.
– Tim Curry
I want people to think about movies and how we watch them. Let them know it's okay to question the structure or how we're sometimes duped into a false sense of normalcy. Most of all, I want people to question the old standard practices of, 'This is how the structure of something should work,' or, 'This is how a character must behave.'
– Tim Heidecker
I understand a woman who validates herself by getting attention from the opposite sex. I have a friend who is that to a T... Doesn't mean she isn't a good person. That's a funny character to play.
– Cheryl Hines
I try to explain to people that you get the roles that are right when they're right. If you have a nerd character but you're kind of a cool guy, you're probably not going to get the nerd part. The nerd is going to get the nerd part. You know, someone like me.
– Ed Helms
I think what's really the most ideal thing is for the player themselves, within their own imagination, to carve out what they view as being the essence of the character.
– Shigeru Miyamoto
I think we all suffer from guilt at some point in our lives, but for the most part I never really regret, and I try to always remain positive. Yes, I think that those issues are very interesting to play in a character, and they're prominent issues in life, and I think people can relate to them.
– Channing Tatum
I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.
– Rachel Weisz
I think theatre is by far the most rewarding experience for an actor. You get 4 weeks to rehearse your character and then at 7:30 pm you start acting and nobody stops you, acting with your entire soul.
– Christopher Eccleston
I think that the best way to explain that is that my mother gave me all the color and character and flare and liveliness, and my father gave me all the sanity and nature and all the things that helped me be a more rounded human being.
– Julie Andrews
I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character.
– Suzanne Vega
I think our failure in the production of good town churches of distinctive character must have struck you often, as it has me, when contrasted with our comparative success in country churches.
– George Edmund Street
I think it's interesting to have a cool character not look so cool, you know?
– Norman Reedus
I think I'm drawn to more villain-type characters, because it's so cool to get to say all the things you want to say. In Hollywood, you get to this position where you have to bite your tongue so much. You take all your experiences of not being able to say what you really want to say, and channel that through your character.
– Gabrielle Union
I think I came across Cecil Taylor a bit later, in 65 or 66. That really impressed me - Cecil Taylor is an amazing character... Both his music and the way he approaches the instrument are astonishing.
– Luc Ferrari
I think Bond the character is distinct: He's British, he has a certain code that he lives by, he's incorruptible... he's a classical hero, but he's also fallible. He has inner demons, inner conflicts, and he's a romantic.
– Barbara Broccoli
I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.
– Nicole Kidman
I tend to play characters that I can infuse with certain kinds of humour. Even the baddest guy can be funny in his own particular way. I want the audience to engage with the character on some deeper level so that they leave the cinema still thinking about him.
– Samuel L. Jackson
I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.
– George Saunders
I suppose I look for humor in most situations because it humanizes things it makes a character much more three-dimensional if there's some kind of humor. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud type of stuff, just a sense that there is a humorous edge to things. I do like that.
– Colm Meaney
I still like the relationship part of any story. You don't want your character to figure everything out and then at the end of the day, go home and eat soup from a can by herself.
– Lisa Gardner
I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.
– Julia Cameron
I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.
– Jason Bateman
I really enjoyed being Peppy Miller. She was an amazing character and her energy followed me everywhere. When I talk about her I want to be her again.
– Berenice Bejo
I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.
– Maya Lin
I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I love Charlie, Billy Burke's character. Writing for him is so spectacular, he's so funny and wry and every scene he's in he just takes. There's a scene in 'Eclipse' where Bella tells him she's a virgin, and it's the funniest, most awkward scene I've ever seen on film.
– Melissa Rosenberg
I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers,' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?
– Rachel McAdams
I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.
– Mikhail Bakunin
I liked the way my character, Shane, was first introduced. You get introduced to her through this sexual action, and I thought that was so cool and just kind of summed up what she enjoys and who she is, to a certain extent. She's a complete sexual being and the great thing is that she doesn't apologize for it. It's just who she is. We rarely see women be able to do that on television.
– Katherine Moennig
I like to comprehend more or less everything around me - apart from the creation of my music. It's an obsessive character trait that's getting worse. I don't switch the light on and off 15 times before I leave the room yet, but something's going wrong.
– Robert Plant
I like the idea of movies having a magic element. How many times have you seen an actor in a movie who you know only as the character? It's wonderful, isn't it?
– Christian Bale
I know there are lots of positives in the evolution of technology, but I also think it will be responsible for the end of a unique character, of a specific kind of geographical culture. The world is getting so small, and mass production is getting so big. Everything is in danger of becoming the same.
– Laura Marling
I just sort of take it from a character perspective, and I don't know if he was necessarily spiritual, but I do think he had hope. He was a character that was comfortable having hope in his life, and hope is faith.
– Ryan Gosling
I hit the ground running, without a lot of training, so I had to do whatever I could do to survive as a professional, and if that meant being that character 24/7 and acting out, I was going to do that. I lived those characters, I brought them home with me.
– Nicolas Cage
I have women coming up to me and saying: 'I love your character! She's so empowered. She takes control she gets what she wants.' That's another side of her. And I respect that in Joan. She says and does things that I would never allow myself to do.
– Christina Hendricks
I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.
– Richard Russo
I have my ethics and morals. I have my anchor point of what is right and wrong in real life, but I'm not afraid to entertain any and every aspect of personality in relationship to creating a character.
– Corin Nemec
I have a character failing. I am quite incapable of identifying with anything whole-heartedly. Whatever I am doing, I am always planning to do something else. I would rather travel than arrive.
– Stephen Bayley
I had these kind of unrealistic expectations that were fueled by romantic comedies, and it has both helped me and hurt me in many ways. It helped me because, in general, they've made me hopeful. I just figure things will eventually work out for me. But nobody is like any Tom Hanks character. Nobody is Hugh Grant. No one is Meg Ryan!
– Mindy Kaling
I had never had a positive leading character - somebody that wasn't an antihero, or who wasn't more of a guy that you're supposed to be on the side of.
– Gus Van Sant
I get letters from kids, teenagers and young girls who just want to be Mac. I've had quite a few people actually say that they're going to become a Marine or a JAG lawyer because of me... the character. I think that's pretty cool!
– Catherine Bell
I genuinely liked all of the cast members very much. Steve had a wicked sense of humor. I remember Russell coming to my rescue, once. I watched Eric evolve before everyone's eyes. Maurice loved what he did, so. He treated his character with respect, down to the costuming.
– Madeleine Stowe
I found my niche as a character actor, and I've never felt like a movie star or teen idol and never wanted to.
– Vincent D'Onofrio
I filmed 'Albatross' before I got 'Downton.' It's a coming-of-age movie about this girl who leaps into this family's life, like a whirlwind. She's ballsy and brash and wonderful, it was such an amazing character to play.
– Jessica Brown Findlay
I feel I do my best work when it's all there on the page, and I feel that the character is very vivid as I read the script and I'm not having to create stuff and trying to cobble together something. If I have to do that, then I don't entirely trust what I'm doing.
– Guy Pearce
I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is.
– Steven Hatfill
I don't think I could play a character that I couldn't relate to somehow. I'm not unfamiliar with frustration, anger, shame, helplessness and a load of other emotions that make up our psycho-soup. I try to focus on that frustration, that sense of unfairness, and multiply it.
– Terry O'Quinn
I don't mind a little Sturm und Drang. When I was doing 'Riding in Cars With Boys,' I wouldn't smile at anybody, because my character, Bev, was angry at the world. I'm the opposite. Inside my head I'd be like, God, I'll explain to you at the end of shooting that I'm not this person.
– Drew Barrymore
I don't know if there is a gene for comedy, but my dad was a very funny man. He just didn't know it. He was a naturally funny character, and when my brother and I would laugh at things he said and did, he would say, 'What do you think is so funny?'
– James Belushi
I don't happen to have a sense of humor personally, so I don't know what's funny about a character... This happens to be a feature of my life generally.
– Wallace Shawn
I don't feel like a romantic lead I guess I feel more like a character actor.
– Matthew Macfadyen
I don't care about sympathy. I care about playing a character who's understandable and clear.
– Anson Mount
I do believe at the end of the night when you're with your family, the character gets hung up on the door like a coat, and is there to be taken on the next morning.
– Liam Neeson
I didn't need clothes. I was allowed the opportunity to act out moments you don't get the opportunity to experience in your own life, let alone as a character in a film. I didn't feel naked.
– Marguerite Moreau
I didn't have any confidence in my beauty when I was young. I felt like a character actress, and I still do.
– Meryl Streep
I did this role in Life Goes On as an HIV positive character and so emotionally that was the most challenging.
– Chad Lowe
I did private study for about a month, five days a week, six hours a day. I came to understand the character in ways that I never would've previous to that. I was so innocent in respect to ways of creating characters.
– Corin Nemec
I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.
– Barbara Kingsolver
I came on to the film with a very happy-go-lucky attitude which I think my character, Charlie, did when she went into the house. I expected it to be good, and then slowly things started to change for us all.
– Jennifer Sky
I approach my character with the question: What would an animal think? How would an animal respond? A lot of times, it's quick action and no fear, and sometimes it's irrational fear. You don't always know.
– Victoria Pratt
I am willing to compete on my merits and on my character - not with the color of my skin. We talk about being a color-blind society, but I don't think the political process could actually handle that.
– J. C. Watts
I am super-proud to have a sort of famous character in my background that if you're a certain age, he was probably a part of your youth. I think that's pretty cool.
– Adam Brody
I am looking for a character that connects to me on some level. It has to be about something, it has to have depth to it and it has to be about something. The story of the character and their relationship with the people and places around them appeal to me and are what I look for.
– Richard Hatch