I'm really normal. I play football, go to the beach, drive. We have dogs. I can imagine people calling me a character, but I'm Joe Straight.
I'm a pleaser. That's my character.
Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
Plots are artificial. Does your life have a plot? It has characters. There is a narrative. There's a lot of story, a lot of character. But plot? Eh, no.
When you look at someone good like J.J. Abrams who gives you the spectacle and great action set pieces but also gives you character and great story and plotting and narrative, I think it's my job - and my intention - to do both.
I guess there's a certain amount of poking fun at certain characters, but that's because there is something amusing about them or about the way they behave, so I guess you can say that that's poking fun at the character. But the character is your own invention, so who cares?
The revolution is that we can be anything. We don't have to be one thing or the other. The idea that it is my responsibility to represent only good black people... I mean, what are you talking about? That's not a character - that's a polemic.
One of my favorite things to do is formulate powers for a character, then come up with their corresponding weaknesses and liabilities. And I delight in world-building: melding the supernatural with the natural, then tweaking and polishing until it feels organic.
Socrates was famously executed for his philosophical and political beliefs. I wondered what would happen if you had a similar character, who was so relentlessly questioning of everything? In a modern society, would we be any more or any less tolerant of that kind of character?
It's only over time that you get to exploring or adding nuances to the character. Like my part in 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' - I am so not the person who wears high heels and totters about like a poodle.
I approach things from my feeling first. I have to get a feel for the character. I'll do that through music; I'll do it through what is naturally popping up for me when I read the script. My ideas or whatever the occupation of the character might be.
I'm not a writer; I'm an actor. My job is to take whatever character I'm given and - especially because I have the responsibility of being a black actress, and I know young black girls are looking up, and everyone's looking to what's on television - to just try to give whatever character I'm playing as three-dimensional a portrayal as I can.
I started my career in Portugal, and the longest I've ever played a character was for about a year, which is how long our TV shows last.
My action follows my characters. If a character is a cop, you cannot be posing all the time, you cannot fly off the roof because it doesn't make any sense - it's not practical.
I can remember back to when I was 12, 13, and any show that I watched, I wanted to be the main character and embody them, and I think the fact that Sabrina is, in so many ways, such a positive role model for young girls is really cool.
In 'The Travelers,' everyone is defined by his or her relationship to work. I put each character on a different rung of the ladder: from the lowliest assistant to a powerful man in the world of media.
I have been lucky to meet some incredible people who do not possess what you would traditionally class as power, but through their charisma, passion, and strength of character, they are able to achieve things that 'richer or more powerful people' could only dream of.
I don't normally think of a specific actor. I concentrate on the character, and then when we get into pre-production, that's how names come up.
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.
I loved 'Modern Family!' It was sort of the precursor to 'Trainwreck,' to that character. But I loved it. I had a great time doing it.
