Character

A lot of cable television is shot on a single camera. Our eyes are more trained to that. It takes the camera off the crane, away from observing the action, to becoming a character in the story along with everyone else. People are getting used to that.

Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honour for me.

I am not sure how much good is done by moralising about fairy tales. This can be unsubtle - telling children that virtue will be rewarded, when in fact it is mostly simply the fact of being the central character that ensures a favourable outcome. Fairy tales are not, on the whole, parables.

I have a new show now called 'The Bridge,' where I play a guy who's a real-life guy. My character's based on the life of a guy named Craig Bromell who was a cop for 12 years and then became head of the police association, so basically the president of the union for 85,000 cops.

I always try to make each character my own.

For 'A Little Night Music,' I did try to get little bit more beefed up for that because I thought that would help me carry myself around the stage in that character.

I got spoiled on 'Breaking Bad.' Playing the same guy for four or five seasons, you get to really explore who the character is.

I'm a character actor.

With the work that I do as a director, I've got dialogue, camera movement, and character blocking to help create a tone to the piece. In photography, those elements are somewhat void so that tone becomes a bit more subtle but still equally important.

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.

I'm more comfortable writing traditional protagonists. But 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Social Network' have antiheroes. I like to write antiheroes as if they're making their case to God about why they should be allowed into heaven. I have to find something in that character that is like me and write to that.

The properties of people and the properties of character have almost nothing to do with each other. They really don't. I know it seems like they do because we look alike, but people don't speak in dialogue. Their lives don't unfold in a series of scenes that form a narrative arc.

I've been recognized very seldom. I think I just look different in person than I do as the character.

I want to work with great directors. I've picked films based on the script or the character and seen them collapse because the directors were not strong visionaries.

When I step into a character's shoes, I don't judge them. I make a conscious effort not to look from the outside in but look from the inside out, and when you do that it allows you to feel and sense things more, and act and react from a core, you know?

Religion forbids us from assuming a God-like character. This is especially true in politics and government, where limiting the power of the state, division of powers, and the doctrine of checks and balances are established in order to prevent accumulation of power that might lead to such Godly claims.

When I was in school, sport was given utmost importance. I think it's fantastic for character building, for team playing, and I think it's a great profile for a nation. One in every six people on Earth is an Indian, and I look forward to the day when we can compete with the heavyweights of the sporting world and do well in the medal tally.

I never want to play the same character twice. I like to do different roles. I have fun with that.

Well, you know, I never want to feel like I have a set plan of what I'm supposed to do. I kind of like to go script by script, and if I like the character and like the story that's why I want to do a movie.

There is always going to be a little bit of me in each character.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing.

If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

I eat, sleep, and drink my character. It is my fantasy to go to another planet.

Acting has made me embrace my childhood. It's become some weird form of therapy. It's like I have a place where I can release all of these emotions. When I was playing Ira Hayes, I didn't have to think about the death of my parents directly. It's just there. I can blend it into Ira's character. I can use Ira's emotions as an outlet.

It's much easier to come back as a recurring character. Because you already know his traits and who he is and what he's about.

With 'Smoke Signals,' the character was so much like me growing up. I lost my parents, and I wish I'd had an opportunity to find out where they were. So I was reflecting on how I grew up, that feeling of abandonment. That whole film was a reality that I always held back and kept to myself.

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.

Even as I was writing 'Empire State,' I knew there were more adventures for the main character, private detective Rad Bradley, to have. I also knew that the world was far larger than what I'd presented in book one.

My own writing has perhaps more of an American flavor than a British one, but that's because the stories I've so far written have needed it. 'Empire State,' 'Seven Wonders' and 'The Age Atomic' are all very place-centric, where the setting itself is almost a character. But there is a universality to story that isn't just limited to science fiction.

Even on your hiatus, you feel like you need to keep the character in the back of your brain.

I'm constantly thinking about the role, and there's an infinite amount of questions you can ask yourself about a character to the point that it's hard to find the boundaries of when to not work.

There's such an emphasis on having a character be likable. I don't think it would be helpful if I worried about that. I mean, not everyone's likable.

The process of rehearsal means you learn so much and really get the chance to develop your work on a character.

I get less and less sketching done at shows, as more and more people want to come up and talk or get stuff signed. Most requested character? Probably Catwoman.

For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.

Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.

I always say the classier cousin of 'Anchorman' is 'Mad Men,' because when you really look at it, why do people really love Don Draper in 'Mad Men?' He's just a terrible guy. But we know why he's terrible, and I think that's really key to why you can be sympathetic to a character.

You can't really do a big character in an action film, you're already suspending your disbelief in the action, then to suspend your disbelief in the character is too much.

I think the least stereotypical gay character on television is probably Matt LeBlanc on 'Episodes.' He just plays it so straight-faced. They never talk about the fact that he's such a huge gay person.

The Russo brothers are the best people ever, and they cast me in 'Happy Endings.' I did text Joe Russo to say, 'I don't think my character dies, so if you need a local news cameraman to show up in 'Captain America 2'... I know it doesn't make sense, but just hear me out on this!' He was really cool about it and turned me down right away.

I saw 'Six Degrees of Separation' because my brother was in it. It was a watershed experience. It was theatrical and scary, and New York functioned like a character. John Guare became a hero for me.

So my character on 'Tyrant' is a chap called Barry Al Fayeed, and he is the second son of a fictional Middle Eastern dictator. But, he has grown up since he was young in America. He's trained as a doctor. He's married a beautiful American girl, had two kids, so he's very much an American.

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.

I like the idea of a character that you wanna like even though you know he's making immoral choices throughout the film.

In theater, you go in-depth with your character, so coming to the States, it was inevitable to dig into the pilots I liked. I knew what characters I was going to be reading for, so I would dissect them and really get involved with them.

I prefer working, period. I think that I like doing film more just because when you get a script, you have the story from start to finish, so you can really find the character's arc, and when you walk away from it, you know you're sort of powerless to what happens.

I love it when you like a character, and then she does something you don't like, and you hate her for a while - then you love her again. I'd like to see her have unlikable moments that the audience understands and sympathizes with.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied, and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

When my mother tells me to do something, I'll do my own thing. A strong character can be good, but sometimes it is not good. I hope it's good in my case.

In some ways, what I learned is that you can take a character and breathe with them, and it's up to the audience to interpret rather than you putting moral stamp on the character.

Also, I'd like to play an athlete again, while I'm still physically fit, or a musician, like Nat King Cole, because I play the trumpet and sing. I'd like to incorporate that into a character.

The only way I know how to deliver is to focus, some people can turn it on or off - I'd rather stay in character.

I create a playlist for each and every character that I play.

Perhaps because my background is theatrical, I have a great affinity with the classics. Hamlet has always been a character of great interest to me and a character I would really love to play. Or a character in a Tennessee Williams play, maybe Tom in 'The Glass Menagerie.'

What I try to do with the accent of any character I play is not necessarily to do something that's generic - an Indian accent and that's how it sounds, for example. I think the accent needs to sound authentic on this person.

I love the trilogy form. I like the idea that you can establish a character in book one. And then in the second part, you can take the characters down to their darkest point. And then in the third part, you have total freedom either to give them redemption - or just to kill them.

Everything has to be clean and orderly when I sit down to write. I have candles going, and small objects that remind me of what I am working on, or bring me into the world of the character.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.

I don't have a classical-music mentality. I haven't been taught that way, and it doesn't fit my character, either.

The fact is I'm choosy, but mainly about a man's character. He has to be interesting, funny and clever. I don't even mind if he's not very good-looking.

I do what I can, but I'll always give it a shot. You're not going to see me playing a Welsh character any time soon, not because I wouldn't love to. I went up to Wales once and read for a film with Rhys Ifans, and haven't been asked back since. We did have a nice time on the train on the way back.

There's no way the writing staff of 'Game of Thrones' haven't read 'The Art of War.' There's definitely an influence on 'Game of Thrones' from this book in both a general way and on the character of Lord Baelish and his strategies.

My thing about looking good is that it should be the character. If I'm playing a character who's concerned about his body - an athlete, say - I'll get in shape. If I'm playing a character who doesn't or wouldn't, I don't. I almost never get in shape for a movie, even though I know it would be a good career move.

Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can access the emotional life of the character.

I want to be known for this character on TV two nights a week, and then I want to go away and live my life in private.

When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you're waiting and waiting and waiting, once you're actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.

I feel respect is in your hands as an actor when portraying a character, particularly when it's from the Indian subcontinent. I do make a conscious effort to do so and often talk to the directors especially about the heavy accent when it's not needed.

Style has become a crucial differentiating factor for most actors in the industry. I generally choose my look based on the character I essay. I research a lot on the Internet and pick something that would suit my face.

It would be hard to play a character you don't like - for me anyway - or can't find something in them to like.

There are writers out there who say they're writing a second series, and then you pick it up and it feels exactly the same, only the lead character is blonde instead of brunette.

I think it is very possible that my deeper character is not very English.

I don't really worry about the size of the part much any more. It's nice to have more time to work on the character, and to have big scenes to play. But if there's something playable there, and if it's interesting to do, then that's nice.

It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character.

Things have got to add up to 100 points. The script is part of it, the character is part of it, the people I'm working with is the third part of it - and any combination of the three has got to add up to 100 points.

I think all writers are armchair psychologists to some degree or another, and I think a character's sexuality is fascinating. It's a great way to really get at the root of their identity, because it's such a personal thing.

Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.

Besides the mistakes that are pointed out, I love the way readers become involved with the characters. When readers start asking about character motivations instead of concentrating on the special effects, it means you're connecting with them on a personal level.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

Good character consists of recognizing the selfishness that inheres in each of us and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire. It is a difficult balance to strike, but no definition of goodness can be complete without it.

I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like... Gene Hackman.

I really was a fan of his and always have been - his writing especially, you know? I think people a lot of times overlook that part, because he kind of got into that party character so heavy.

It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Age, style, where you come from, where you were born, it's different every time, which, to me, is refreshing because it says that there isn't any one thing, one formula or kind of character that makes a great comedian. Everybody has had a different approach.

Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.

Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.

Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you - almost seems to speak through you, in fact.

I am the character you are not supposed to like.

So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.

Anytime you have an opportunity as an actor to really grow along with your character, I think that's a real gift.

On 'Master of None,' the majority of the episodes were just one story, and that was by design because we really wanted to focus in on the character of Dev and get the audience in his head.

When I get a role, I try to delve as deeply as possible into the character.

I think I present a different side of a male character: a side that is not John Wayne-like, a side that is, in fact, destructible. To some people, that is refreshing, and to other people, especially if they don't know me, it may be disturbing.

My dad played a character on the radio called 'Parkyakarkus.' A Greek-dialect comedian. He did Friars' roasts and wrote material and made people laugh that way. But he wrote his own shows with other writers.

One of the things I like about a character: I always think it's fascinating when a character can turn on a dime and go from one emotion to another. I like watching that.

Well, you know, with every character, if you're going to expose yourself, you've got to figure out every detail that you're going to play. So there's no character that you can just go put on his shirt and be fully prepared.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it, and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

Each film and each character is a completely new set of challenges. It doesn't feel like you can rest on something you may have done well in the past.

I would say that it's mainly about the director. It's a hard quality to find, but I always know whether I want to do something or not. The character is important to me, as is getting to work with people that I feel like I can learn from and make a great movie with.

My approach is always the same. I try to be as honest as possible. Find the real honesty and humanity in the character because even a fictional character is supposed to feel real. And my job is to find that reality and bring it to the screen.

All of us want something in life, all of us have flaws, and all of us have strengths. So, I always try to discover those things in a character and then try to expose it in one way or another.

As the camera, I try to subordinate every word to be truthful and honest to each character's context.

I see myself as a character actor, and I've always been drawn to playing characters that are different from myself because acting is escapism for me. I've never been that comfortable playing people that are like me.

I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I'm a character actor.

There's a character that I play onstage, and I can't let him loose in the supermarket when I'm buying my beans on toast.

I don't think my looks are modern. I always imagined I'd end up doing Chekhov, Ibsen and Shakespeare all my life and never play a contemporary character.

What your character does for a living is one of the most important choices you can make in a screenplay, even if their job is tangential to the story, because it tells you everything about the condition of their life. Are they doing what they love? Are they doing what they hate?

On 'Glee,' we often tackle the tough topics that young people face - in fact, my recurring character, Wade 'Unique' Adams, is a transgender teenager who finds herself navigating a lot of the same problems many young people face around the globe.

I never think about the next movie. I always think about the situation I'm in now, but you do think about an arc someone can go. I love Johnny Depp, I love 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' but I never wanted to play the same character over and over again.

Look, every actor has a different way of preparing or creating a character and yeah, we all are from different backgrounds.

The thing is when you play a character it's the persona you bring across from a book to film, or book to script to film. If I play Frank Sinatra, there's gonna be things I do in a movie that Frank might not have done, but it's the personality that comes across.

When you get into a film, it is one story and one set development of a character, and you are able to delve into one character for a short period of time and discover everything about them.

My manager got the script for 'Under the Dome,' and I read it and just fell in love with the character. I grew up on Stephen King, and I love his whole aesthetic of the classic American story with supernatural events happening, so it just made sense.

If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

I remember once seeing a guy in the grocery store who looked so much like my character the Archangel Gabriel, I wanted to go up to him and say, 'Hey, put that Red Bull down. You've already got wings.' My friend had to sternly remind me that he was a stranger and I did not, in fact, create him.

I took Meisner for a long time. I use a lot of sense memory and, well, I wouldn't say Method, but I can't really avoid getting into character.

I'm a big believer in sort of sense memory, like using something that you've experienced in order to put yourself in the position that the character is in.

It's cool to be a female character who gets to be really strong and tough.

When you're with another actor who's also been through five hours of prosthetic makeup, and you're eating another person's neck, and fake blood is being spurted out at you for two minutes, it's incredibly fun, and you're in character for that time. You can't really believe that that's your job.

I enjoy being a character actor, I enjoy being different in everything. I want a private life, I want to be able to go to 7-11 and not get into a fight with a guy because he saw me in a movie, or not have people hitting on me simply because they saw me in a movie.

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 think that's how any actor would make their performance convincing: by bringing an element of themselves into the character.

It annoys me when people can't differentiate between the character and the actor, which is a little bit silly.

You can say to actors that you've got to be the character and really get into it, but you have to make it realistic by bringing an element of yourself into it.

In 'Gravity,' nearly everything is a metaphor for the main character. The way I tend to approach a film is that character and background are equally important, one informs the other. Here, Sandra Bullock is caught between Earth and the void of the universe, just floating there in between. We use the debris as a metaphor for adversity.

Does my character hate Bree? Well, let's just put it this way. Bree hasn't seen the last of me. I gave that drunk gal a ride home a few episodes ago and she turned on me!

The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.

When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'

The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character.

It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline.

And very often the influence exerted on a person's character by the amount of his income is hardly less, if it is less, than that exerted by the way in which it is earned.

It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries, the first class including all things required to meet wants which must be satisfied, while the latter consist of things that meet wants of a less urgent character.

Character actors aren't a brand in the same way that high-profile leading men are.

After 'Student Of The Year,' when I played that baby-doll, diva character, I knew I would be stereotyped, and I wanted to break that image of me. I loved that role, but I don't want to be attached to one particular genre, so 'Highway' was a blessing in disguise.

I think each character is different for me, but I am a director's actor. So if I get the right vision and right guidance from my director, I think sky is the limit for me.

I feel very lucky 'Arrested Development' was so successful because I never really got too much attention, and I was able to evolve instead of only being seen as one character.

When you believe in God, you've got to believe in the all-powerful God. He's not just God, He's the all-powerful God and He has total control over everyone's life. The Devil, on the other hand, is a real character that's trying his hardest to tear your life apart.

My dad says that when I was two or three I used to go out dressed as a different character every day. I remember thinking it was perfectly normal to wear different coloured shoes and carry a pink umbrella. But now I've got a goddaughter of that age, I realise it's not normal at all.

In film, the camera can get an array of shots so the audience can see the emotion the character is giving off. Using close-ups on the character's face really helps get the message across. On stage, you can't do that. But the stage has that live feeling that you can't get anywhere else because the audience is right there.

It seems everyone wants to know if I have an eating disorder, and playing an anorexic character on 'Make it or Break It' probably didn't help much. To set the record straight, I certainly do not have an eating disorder. I think as anyone can gather, I love food, and it is not just a front to cover up the fact that I don't eat any.

The characters are not allowed to change if you write a sitcom, they're not allowed to learn anything. There's all these sorts of rules, and you go, 'I just want to be able to write one character and then leave that behind.' Also, as a performer, and I may regret saying this, but it would be my own personal hell to be trapped in the sitcom.

Any fiction writer who assumes that a character is typical no doubt runs the risk of stumbling into cliche and stereotype.

The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not permitted to defend themselves.

On-screen relationships are the best because you don't have to worry about saying the wrong things. And if the guy's got a girlfriend, or I'm not attracted to him, it's even better. It's just my character kissing his character.

It's a hard thing to age a character because you can't really suddenly give someone gray hair.

Generally, if a good script comes in I read it, and if it appeals to me, it appeals to me. And it doesn't have to be anything - it doesn't have to be the main character, it doesn't have to be a huge part. It could be a nice cameo - anything that I think is good and surrounded by good, enthusiastic people.

You wanna do a lot of backstory for your character - as an actor, you wanna research that. But on the show, it's fun to remain in that naive place as you go along, and be able to continue to discover things about your character as the writers come up with them.

I don't want to work just for the sake of working. Generally, if a good script comes in, I read it, and if it appeals to me, it appeals to me. And it doesn't have to be anything - it doesn't have to be the main character, it doesn't have to be a huge part.

I always wanted to be a character actor. I love watching movies where you don't recognize someone because they're so lost in the part.

When I am preparing my 'lookalike' photographs, I think about the character of the real people, because, if the photographs are going to be plausible, you have to convince the viewer that they could have happened.

But, you know, it really depends on the character. Age doesn't really matter.

I like to take a character and develop it.

Psychologically, I'll always be a fat girl because that's what my character is built on. I always got a buzz out of people telling me I was ugly. I went out of my way to un-beautify myself. I didn't want anyone's approval.

Mrs. Miniver was an ordinary middle-class English housewife, a character created by Jan Struther when she was commissioned by the 'Times of London' to write a weekly 'cheer-up' article in 1937.

For me, the world is a stage, and we are all playing the character we have chosen to play on that stage. It is the job of the photographer to capture the drama of the performance.

The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts.

I was a supporting character in other people's lives, which seemed right and familiar to me. I was also an outsider: English in the U.S., American in England, dogged yet comforted by that familiar feeling of alien-ness, which occupied that space where my sense of self should have been.

Allison Janney's character in 'The West Wing' was so rocking! I am a huge fan of Mary Louis Parker and her character in 'Weeds.' My manager says, 'you have to grow into yourself, Allison' because all the characters I want to play are, like, 39.

Using clothes to transform was a huge part of my childhood. But also, I've been acting forever, and wardrobe changes the way you feel, so it totally indicates the character you're going to play.

It's interesting to play a female character who's not ever using feminine wiles to get things done.

In real life, we do things out of character, constantly. A couple of days ago, my shoes were hurting, so I walked barefoot through New York. Someone who has known me my whole life would think that was so out of character. But I did it because of the circumstances.

My whole background is character acting: weird costumes, fat suits, playing men, playing animals - I've never played anyone with whom there's any overlapping Venn diagram.

I think that acting involves doing your job so well that you are able to help the viewer identify with the character.

I just have that cop gene going on. I like strong women. I think a lot of women relate to strong characters, and a cop is still a strong character.

I like strong women. I think a lot of women relate to strong characters, and a cop is still a strong character.

'Flaubert's Parrot' is an amphibious book in which what appears to be a personal essay about Flaubertian writing is gradually, delicately transformed into an extremely sad novel in which the differences between character, author, and narrator are less clear than they appear at first glance.

I think, to me, I was always taught you never approach any character as a villain. Every human being on earth really believes that they're doing the best thing. We all have our rationalizations.

When you're playing a character, as an actor or actress, you can't judge them for what they do. You really have to find what is in them that you have compassion for and fall in love with that character, regardless of what they do or how they behave.

If the character is really well-rounded, and it's a really strong character, and if the writing is just fantastic, that's the thing that will hook me in, certainly.

I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.

I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.

Well, my mom is single and we've both been single at the same time over the last ten years, so I really related to the bond between my character and Diane's.

I just love to act. I like to get away, totally play a different character, someone you can get really involved in knowing. I've gotten really involved in some characters and written down little summaries of where they live and what their families are like.

I don't find anything interesting about the choices a character faces in major films or theater projects. The characters are just cut-out dolls with the American flag sewn on them.

Acting is fascinating to me. I love unlocking the mysteries with characters and finding out what would be the most intriguing aspect of that character to exist in. Figuring out a person and getting to be a different person every day, hey - that's pretty lucky. I don't have to wake up and be Amanda if I don't feel like it. You know, that's fun.

I love acting... I really do. I love crawling into another character's skin. That's something that I've always, always, always, always wanted.

I think that I have this core group of fans that fell in love with the character I played on Buffy and now they're following me to everything I do. They're very dedicated and loyal. I'm very lucky.

I think specifically because of the character that I played, people are very connected to her. I used to get letters from young gay and lesbian and trans-gendered kids saying, 'I didn't kill myself because of Buffy'.

Everybody enjoys when a woman is her own character in a movie or otherwise.

I take the sexy girl parts and try to give them something else and make them a character.

It's my job in Hollywood to find roles where I get to be a character not a bathing suit.

I never wanted to play a character that hated herself. I wanted people to know that those aren't the only roles for people like me, normal girls.

Not in our make-up, to be sure - not in the pose which is preceded by the tantaras of a trumpet - do the essential traits in our character first reveal themselves. But truly in the little things the real self is exteriorised.

Honestly, I get character ideas from the most inane places. Sometimes a song will give me an idea. Sometimes I will just hear a snippet of conversation that ends up having nothing to do with the book that emerges.

Don't let anyone make you believe the length of your skirt is a measure of your character.

We play many emotions in our careers, emotions that in real life we would perform just once. For example, my character has died in about 10 films, so you have to keep searching for different ways to do it!

Usually when people see me, they see me as more of the soft-spoken one rather than being the witty, smart-tongued character.

I feel there's something about becoming a character that helps people understand themselves.

I was raised by extremely strict - but also extremely loving - Chinese immigrant parents, and I had the most wonderful childhood! I remember laughing constantly with my parents - my dad is a real character and very funny. I certainly did wish they allowed to me do more things!

I wanted to do something about a really optimistic character: a character who was so optimistic, no one could burst her bubble.

If you like quick put-downs and aggressive interactions with the audience, you will probably not enjoy the rambles of an unusual character act making jokes about cats for an hour.

For me, as an actress, you are playing a character, and to play that character, you have to get into that mindset.

I like to do a lot of research for my films and live my character.

If you do a scene and you really like a character in it or a premise in it to write it down and to work on it so that you can have five or six characters that you can pull out in an audition.

Sometimes in my class I have people come in and do monologues inspired by people they know and I always find that to be useful to do specifics about somebody and then you're actually doing a character and not doing some random old lady or something.