It's easy enough to get into power. You can make promises and try to be all things to all people. But the moment you have to make decisions, you're going to annoy at least half of them. Whatever you do, in the end you're almost certain to be brought down by your own character traits.
I spent a lot of time in Chicago at a place called The Annoyance Theater, where we would develop one-act plays through improv, and you would just improvise scenes and then discover something about the character and use it in the next scene.
I think that Trinity's just the greatest character that I could ever play. I don't expect to ever play another woman that wonderful. I have a lot of Trinity in me, for sure.
Each character, be it the antagonist or the protagonist, brings with himself his own personality... and I have tried to stay true to each one of them; each is enjoyable in their own way!
This character I play on 'OITNB' is an antagonist in a Black Lives Matter storyline, but you need antagonists in order to tell those stories.
I find fight scenes actually more interesting, in a way, than chase scenes because you're watching your character go through this problem-solving process and fight the antagonist mano-a-mano. It's more powerful, more emotional.
Every field piece I did on 'The Daily Show' was a story that lasted five to six minutes. We had a protagonist, we had an antagonist and often put them at odds. We knew the story we wanted to tell before we went in, and often it was about plugging whatever character you have - in this case, a real person - into said part.
I would love to do an anthology show based on the character of Jesse B. Semple that Langston Hughes wrote about. He's sort of a Forrest Gump character in the midst of 20th century Harlem.
Still, it can be more effective to accomplish what you need to accomplish with the minimum effort. Watch Anthony Hopkins. He doesn't appear to be doing anything. He is so still that you can't see him working, but you are drawn into his character through his very stillness.
There was one film that I really wanted. This was a long time ago; it was a film called 'Fracture.' Ryan Gosling ended up doing it with Anthony Hopkins. It wasn't a giant box-office success, but I really enjoyed the script, and I enjoyed the character. I got pretty close and was kind of disappointed it didn't go my way.
I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is.
Good guy' or 'bad guy', hero or anti hero; doesn't matter to me, what role I play, only the character have something magical.
There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.
I like cluttered, old, dark-wood antiques. I like character.
The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.
What I like and find liberating in dialogue comedy is that the characters, and what they say, are not me. These are fleeting thoughts and observations and not presented as truths but as something that illuminates the character and the dynamic between the characters. This kind of dialogue is thesis and antithesis - and we never get to a synthesis.
The character of Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart added so much. He was solid in the ring too, really good. His role in the Hart Foundation - he was great. He was a really good, solid power guy that could move in there, too.
I'm quite curious and excited about seeing a new script for 'Blade Runner.' If, in fact, the opportunity would exist to do another, if it's a good script, I would be very anxious to work with Ridley Scott again; he's a very talented and passionate filmmaker. And I think it would be very interesting to revisit the character.
I realise that certain actors project their own image onto the screen - those who are the same on as they are off. But I've never had the necessary statistics to be able to do that sort of thing, and so, anyway, I always wanted to be a character actor.
I had been very impressed with the voiceover of 'Apocalypse Now,' with Martin Sheen's voice. That was a great voiceover; it really internalized the Martin Sheen character, who was essentially fairly low key and didn't say a lot during the whole movie. But he thought a lot, so I always thought that was really great.
