Character Quotes

"When I'm hired just to be an actress, I don't have to worry about anything else but showing up on set, making sure I know my lines and making sure I know what I'm bringing to the character. When I'm a creator and executive producer, I have to worry about the whole thing."

"We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment."

"When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances."

"I had an audition where Josh Brolin was pelting me with his personality. I didn't get the part."

"I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow."

"Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel."

"The growing tide of anti-Semitism shocks the conscious of everyone who values freedom, and the ugly, hateful acts particularly stain the character of democracies where liberty and religious freedom are supposed to be respected."

"To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be."

"If I had been born with an aggressive character, then maybe my palmares would have been longer."

"I'd never really considered doing young-adult novels, but one of the things that a friend pointed out to me is that I've actually had a teenage character in almost every adult novel that I've written."

"The whole point of taking a job is that you connect with a character or with an issue."

"There isn't as much passion and outrage in today's newspapers. That may be because of a corporate decision, but they've lost their personality."

"Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me."

"You use words like 'introvert' and 'extrovert,' various traits of a personality. A lot of that stuff, we used in drama school, and that was kind of interesting, to realize my teachers sort of ripped off a lot of Jung. And how much of it is part of our society now, these phrases, introvert and extrovert, where it actually came from."

"I've had a couple of people come up to me after screenings and say they kind of sympathized with the character. I always get a kick out of it when people say that. It means I did something maybe a little bit to the credit of the character."

"I really liked drama and being in plays, so when I was playing a character onstage and I could act like somebody else, then I wasn't scared or nervous, but I didn't like meeting new people when I had to be myself. That was scary."

"You could say that Iron Man was a second-tier character, and it turned out very successfully. I simply think it's down to the movie itself, and whether people enjoy the movie, are involved in the movie, and that it entertains them. From that point of view, the movie has to stand alone."

"Bond in 'Goldeneye' is pretty much a set character. To be honest, he's another version of Connery, and Connery was terrific. How many submarines can you blow up? How many control rooms are evaporating?"

"With film, it's all about the actor being able to feel the things that the character's feeling. It must do some strange things to your mind. Music I find much easier because you're being honest about where you are as a person."

"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."