Novels are political because in them, we try to identify with people who are not like us. And, in that sense, I like the first-person singular because I have to imitate accurately the voice of someone who is not like me. The third-person singular gives me an authority over a character.
It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
Even setting aside her checkered record in the Senate and the State Department, it is Mrs. Clinton's flagrant contradictions on women's issues that expose her true character.
Even my mom is calling me Shaggy now, which is weird, because Shaggy is more like a character that I play. Shaggy is flamboyant; he's cocky. And I can't live that twenty-four hours a day - hell, no.
Cogsworth, the character I did on 'Beauty and the Beast,' could be a bit flamboyant onscreen, because basically, he is a cartoon. But they didn't want Cogsworth to become Disney's gay character, because it got around a gay man was playing him.
The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.
I love, in movies, when you feel and you understand the past of the character without it being said or having a flashback or something that explains. I think, in 'Prisoners,' we need to understand that Loki's character's past was not first class. He was not the first in his class.
Flashy characters are more entertaining to people because you get it. You don't have to work to get someone who says what they mean and says what they think. They're out there. It's harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness.
A risk for a poet-novelist is imbalance: The poems can flatten into prose or lose their intensity of focus; the novels can stall amid lofty writing or literary preciousness and ignore the engine of plot and character.
The low points I had all helped make up my character, so I probably wouldn't want to do away with them because I like being flawed and I like having them help me grow and change and become better and stronger.
I love when actors can let go of where and how they have to do it, and just that we do it. That we are flawed and human, and don't worry about how we look or who we are, or that it seems too old of a character if we're still young.
We humans have a powerful instinct to flee from peril. It takes a special kind of courage, a deep sense of duty, and extraordinary character to overcome these impulses and - for the sake of others - to run toward the danger.
I worked with HBO on 'Recount,' and we had a wonderful experience together. I'm such a fan of HBO and how much flexibility they give in character as well as schedule.
I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.
If a character dies, you get to do a big, juicy death scene. But the flip side is you're out of the sequel, which is where the real money is.
I've been told I've done a lot of flop movies. And I think, 'Wow, I've never considered them flops!' I've loved every character I played.
I get really flowery and verbose in my adult books, but I don't think I dumb down my Y.A. It's just cleaner and more snappy. And the adult books have multiple points-of-view. In my Y.A., it's always third person from the main character's perspective.
The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days.
Some have said that the power of a Redeemer would depend upon two things: first, upon the richness of the self that was given; and second, upon the depths of the giving. Friend and foe alike are agreed on the question of the character of Jesus Christ.
The man that makes a character, makes foes.
