When I look back at my childhood on the Ayrshire coast, I recall a basic devotion to the idea that human nature and national character are as unknowable as the weather's rationale.
As the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, our president is more than a list of policies. They set the tone of our national character.
America has always welcomed anyone willing to assimilate to its national character. But radical Islam rejects assimilation and is bent on the conquest of our national character.
No government can be strong and flourishing while the national character is weak and degraded. A government must flourish and decay with its subjects; and, when a prince makes a law or performs an action which has a tendency to injure the character or prosperity of the nation, he injures himself.
Most importantly, nothing has happened to change my conviction that freedom and the love of liberty remain the essential defining attributes of our national character as a people.
My experience with the National Theatre in Kracow often involved many changes of storyline and character. This was particularly useful when working with a director such as Pawel Pawlikowski who is quite intuitive and demands flexibility in an actor.
I auditioned for the role of an angel in the Nativity play at school. I didn't get it. I auditioned for Mary; didn't get it. So I made up the character of the sheep who sat next to Baby Jesus.
A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.
I don't write a whole lot about one person that exists in reality; it's usually characteristics of different people that I combine into a character. I tend to think through and try and make characters behave in a natural way. I follow the character and think about what they would do, what decisions they would make.
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.
The more time you spend with any character, whether it's from a comic book universe or a really naturalistic universe, the more time you spend, the more that character just becomes another aspect of yourself.
As an actor, it's hard to approach any character with negatives.
It's easy to play a character who is suffering with a disease or has a psychological problem. 'Gentleman' is completely opposite. There are both positives and negatives in the role, and it is the most challenging role I have done so far.
A lot of the time I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in. I have that nerd factor in my character.
The description of my character in the first few movies I did was always 'nerdy,' but I liked that; it was way more interesting.
With the rise of cable, network is clearly floundering because the characters on cable are far more fascinating than they are on network. Network television is trying to figure it out. Network television really relies on story rather than character, and cable relies on character.
It's funny - I was a big fan of 'The Sopranos.' It became kind of a threat to 'The X-Files' in a way because they could play with language, character, and story in ways that we never could because of the limitations of network television.
In the Emperor's New Clothes, they got a different celebrity to do each voice. They drew up a picture of each character and then each actor wrote their own part.
Here in New England, the character is strong and unshakable.
Then there's going to be another project I am involved with, in fact, I'm going back to film it next week. It's a game for the Internet called Advance Warriors, and my character is Max, who is blind, but he has special powers. It will be a new game played on the Internet.
