I'm not a big guy. I'm not a menacing guy. I'm not an intimidating guy. I may look that way, but just spend two seconds talking to me, and you know that's not who I am - not as a person, as a character. It's not who I intend to be.
Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
I am willing to compete on my merits and on my character - not with the color of my skin. We talk about being a color-blind society, but I don't think the political process could actually handle that.
I'll tell you how it happened. The phone rang. Paul, my agent, goes, 'Would you like to play Meryl Streep's?' I said, 'Yeeees! I'll do it, whatever it is.' He said, 'It's Mamma Mia!.' I said, 'Oh no, which character? The fat friend?
Through his mastery of storytelling techniques, he has managed to separate his character, in the public mind, from his actions as president. He has, in short, mesmerized us with that steady gaze.
I'm no Method actor. I've tried staying in character, and it's just exhausting.
I wouldn't call myself a method actor, but I have my own method. I do my own research. I come up with a background for the character. I'm not a club man. I don't like isms. I've never really studied Stanislavski.
I wouldn't say I'm a Method actor, but I do try to focus very deeply on what character I'm playing, and everything else goes out the window. I forget about everything. I try to get everything else out of my head.
At a Metro station, I got called out by my character name - Meera - and I realised that I had started responding to that quite intuitively. It was quite a funny moment.
You're never going to be able to delve into the character traits of a Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton.
If a filmmaker is making a movie about a nice Midwestern family or a story that needs a very white character or a black or a Chinese, then I don't expect to go up for it. But I know, especially in places like New York, there's no excuse not to see various colors.
My character on 'Voyager,' because of the way he was presented, I could go either way. I could be a real buffoon, a windbag, be self-involved, and we could get a lot of comic mileage from him. However, the audience accepted me with gravity when I was in a dire situation, so they would follow me in comic or dramatic stories.
Among those who are satisfactory in this respect it is desirable to have represented as great a diversity of intellectual tradition, social milieu and personal character as possible.
I went to a military school between the ages of six and 12 and later into the air force. You learn discipline and strength of character.
If you're very open to watching the world go by, with people's different tics, you absorb it all without realizing it and find ways to put something into your character. I'm not sure I'm always aware I'm mimicking someone.
I suppose the cult of the strong woman character on TV has probably been misinterpreted in so many different ways, meaning that a woman can't be emotionally complicated or want things or can't be weak in moments.
I feel character description from a book can mislead you and actually make you fall off course when you're representing a character using a script.
It's definitely my responsibility not to stereotype any character, but especially a gay character because of the misperceptions people still have about gays.
I wrapped a movie called 'Zombieland,' in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character. With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie.
At 24, my head was as shiny as a cue ball on a billiard table. I naturally thought this meant curtains. Actually, I found it helped. When I was too young to play real character parts, they mistook me for older because of the bald noggin. I got juicy roles right from the start.
