God is a freaking character, with enough foibles, tantrums, and paradoxical behaviors to supply a thousand screenplays. But who do you cast?
When the audience first sees Cooper talking into his tape recorder at the beginning of 'Twin Peaks,' I think that's the greatest introduction to a character I've seen in my career. It tells you everything about the guy right there in a few minutes as well as bringing up a whole load of questions.
I love ensemble pieces, I love being a part of the entire tapestry of a piece, but I think character actors do have a lot more fun, and there's a versatility involved that's challenging and fun, to come up to speed and do what's required of you.
Tarzan is such a great character in that he's very innocent and wide-eyed about the world, yet he's so powerful and capable. It's fun to play those qualities simultaneously in the same person.
'Taxi Driver' is one of those films that is groundbreaking in how much you're inside this character's head. It uses voice-over in a revolutionary way where the audience is invited as a co-conspirator to the whole story line.
I wish I had played team sports. I think every kid should. Teamwork builds character - teaches people about leadership and cooperation.
I design for the movie and the character as well as the person wearing the costume. I show the ideas to the actor, then do fittings for shape and technical things such as movement in the costume. Once the costume in this form is on the actor, you have a sense of their connection with it. I then take it to the next level with the final fit.
I'm not the expert on the great gameplay. I come in for the character design, monsters, atmosphere. I'm not the technician.
I found my niche as a character actor, and I've never felt like a movie star or teen idol and never wanted to.
You have to temporarily be the character in order to understand him. It's sort of what they used to call 'shape-shifting.'
There are scripts when you fall so much in love with your character. And if you are lucky and offered this part, you should not tempt your fate and go to the greatest extent to be/to play this character. If you have an opportunity to do that and you do not, it's shameful.
That movie 'Hellraiser 2' - to me, that was the most evilest display of evil I've ever seen. I watched that movie ten times because I couldn't believe that each character became more evil than the other.
He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.
I believe that a large part of the training in the regional theaters is in imitation of the British style of acting. The British orientation is textual; they start from the language and work toward the character.
Thank goodness for me, 'Smallville''s Lois Lane is younger, so there's a little bit of play with the character.
When I did 'The Social Network', David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome. I thought that was really cool because I think he's really cool.
I can sing every single word of Honky Tonk's theme song. He was great. He might not be that cruiserweight-style wrestler or a Bret Hart-type of wrestler, but I thought he was great. He was such an over-the-top character, and it was a character on the peripheral of wrestling.
Marie-Antoinette was born in 1755, the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis I. She was intelligent and artistic but devoid of the ambition or calculation required to survive in the fetid atmosphere of the French court. In many ways, her character was not unlike that of Mary, Queen of Scots.
I had this very strict rule when I began auditioning that I wasn't gonna do a thicker accent, because it was like, 'I can't tell if it's supposed to be funny because he talks funny.' And now I feel like there are certain characters that I could play that could involve doing a thicker accent, as long as it's specific to that character.
In some respects, big ideas can be a bit too big for a short story - especially if you've only got a couple of thousand words to play with, and you need room for other stuff, like character, description.
