Quotes About Characters

In movies and TV, we tend to fall into tropes about how characters might get out of problems. But when you look at real life, you realize that there is a lot of drama of not being able to get out of the problems.

All of the trickster, rascal characters that I write have the voice I aspire to. In real life, you can't be that obnoxious and get away with it.

The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life.

My characters all have issues, but I don't see that as weird or abnormal because I think in real life there are very few bland, normal people.

Culture is this thing that exists apart from our real life but is something we all have tacitly agreed to in America. And what film and television do, particularly in this country, is lay out the characters involved in this invisible agreement and dictate who and what can participate.

I think I am generally prone to exaggerating characters, taking them to a ridiculous extent. But you do also meet those people in real life who are just really awful.

Of course I know my characters are unlikable sometimes or have prejudices. It's not as if I'm thinking they're so endearing all the time. I guess it's much more interesting to me to write someone who is a combination of good and bad qualities because that's what people are like in real life.

In TV, you look to make characters consistent, but in real life, we're not consistent. Sometimes we're brave, and sometimes we're not. Sometimes we're very aggressive, and sometimes we back right down.

I am a newspaper columnist and a professional screenwriter, but my real love is the novel for all the room it has for characters to come alive and breathe and face their challenges.

I've made many films and only a few times I've played real people.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

Meta-fiction doesn't depend on the illusion that you're reading about real people.

Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.

My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.

At the core, I try to write characters who are real people with real insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams, which is why hopefully readers can identify with them.

With my physicality and my face, I don't think I could pull off a completely righteous guy. There's something devious about my eyes. I like characters with flaws and to see how they overcome those flaws. I want to play real people, and they're flawed, not perfect.

The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.

I find that using real people as models keeps me from getting too formulaic in the designs of characters.

I can tell very early on, reading a script, within six or seven pages, whether I'm looking at real people, and whether I can see and hear real people.

The first time I read a crime novel - I think it may have been an Elmore Leonard book - it took some time for me to realise how the genre worked. There were about 20 characters on the first page, and I wasn't used to this. I started to enjoy it when I saw that was how crime books worked.

The big takeaway I got from 'Thelma & Louise' was the reaction of women who had seen the movie being so profound, so different. It was overwhelming, and it made me realise how few opportunities we give women to feel excited and empowered by female characters, to come out of a movie pumped.

I'm not likely to be attracted to characters I've already done. I have to be almost frightened by the possibility of taking it on. Over the years, I realise I must enjoy walking that edge; I keep doing it.

Nanda and I never discussed work. Our work never came in the way of our friendship. We were both down-to-earth and very Indian. Both of us attempted glamorous roles but soon realised that it's better to play characters that were close to our personalities.

The Indian audience is getting exposed to world cinema and realising the power of unique plots and distinct characters.