Quotes About Character

Character is the essence of all that a man has seen in life and regards as high and exalted. Character is like truth: the substance of the things that a man has forgotten but the substance of the things that are worth remembering in life.

I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them.

I wanted to be different and went in for roles with substance after my first film itself.

What I'd look for are roles in which the heroine's character has substance rather than just glamour.

I like men of substance.

As an actor, I just made the most of the opportunities that came my way and I owe it to my directors for having given me characters with substance, as I have never gone around asking for a role.

I don't look at the length of the role, but yes I'm looking for substance.

As far as films are concerned, I would take up only those roles which are challenging and have some substance in them.

Being an actor, I have no issues with a character being negative or positive as long as the role is substantial and meaty.

I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I'm really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.

I love the simplicity of Kevin Spacey's work. He really does a subtle interpretation of every character, and that's kind of my style of acting when it comes to dramatic roles.

My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate, I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting, subtle relationship.

I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge.

Assimilation of the fruits of each past life takes place before the spirit descends to rebirth, and consequently, the character generated is fully formed and readily expressed in the subtle, mobile mind-stuff of the Region of Concrete Thought, where the archetype of the coming dense body is built.

I like a naturalism to my dialogue and my comedy. I would rather have a few jokes sail by that might be more subtle than have every single joke hit hard. I would rather the comedy come out of character as opposed to feeling forced. Even if you're giving some laughs up for it.

I think you can say so much about a character in lots of subtle ways.

When you're doing lots and lots of episodes and you're playing the same character, it's great because you really get to know the character and it becomes a really fast style and you find subtleties in it.

I am a big one for subtlety and empathy. My dad was softly spoken and didn't carry his honours and accomplishments for everyone to see.

A character takes shape in the act of writing. You start with something, and you add or subtract.

Some people like neat suburbs. I always am attracted to the rundown and the old and the offbeat.

The thing that I like about Pee-wee is it can exist on the level of midnight college cult movies that the hip kids are into and, at the same time, it could be something a kid and his family watch together. Being able to straddle both lines of being subversive and, at the same time, very inclusive - I love that about the character.

One of the things I love about the character development in 'Power' is Courtney A. Kemp's subversive use of stereotype.

I like films that just put you in someone's world. It can be very subversive. Hitchcock would put you in the mind of a psychopath, and you'd care about them.

I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.