Martin Landau Quotes

Character is primary. What happens as far as plot and events is not as intriguing to me as what's happening inside this particular person.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

A conventional playwright tries to tell you more about the characters than they know about themselves.

My thing is, I like playing guys who have a really interesting internal monologue.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

I have not thought too much about the psychology or life of the character Jonas in some time.

If you only live in the world of the actor, and if you only live in the world of auditions, etc., then you don't really have a whole lot to offer when it comes to playing the humans that you're trying to audition for.

Acting is usually regarded as a wholly narcissistic pursuit but there really is a hunger in me to unravel the human condition.

If you go into something saying, 'I'm the bad guy,' you do yourself a disservice as an actor. It's always about trying to find the humanity in a character.

Ten years of character development affords you a lot. You get a chance to dig deeper and deeper and deeper into a person.

Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.

As an actor, you are always looking for subtext, for layers, for what's going on underneath.

The story line was done in a way that's organic and was doled out very slowly in little bites. We think that's authentic for this character, that her feelings are very deeply buried or she never felt them.

There's so much of, it could have been a very critical examination of what happened, and really the emotional lives of the people involved sort of carry the characters forward.

I am attracted to the complexities and deeper truths of characters, and I can't name a favourite role any more than I can name a favourite food!

One of the things that makes Hamlet unique among Shakespeare's characters is his courage to face up to the darker elements of his personality.

For an author, the nice characters aren't much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They're doing it for themselves.

All of us want something in life, all of us have flaws, and all of us have strengths. So, I always try to discover those things in a character and then try to expose it in one way or another.

People pitch me the crazy mystery mind-blowing thing all the time. My response is, 'Great, but how do the characters feel about it, and how do we reveal new facets and new dimensions of who they are?'

To me, the psychology behind the character is critical. So I work very hard to get into the mind of the man that I'm going to be playing, because number one, I want to understand why he's doing what he's doing. It's essential, it's absolutely essential.

Often I choose characters who express not my best self, but the sides of me I haven't developed or haven't expressed.

Those things interest me a lot in songwriting - the human nature of how people think, and the muck that we wind up in.

Clearly, I'm drawn to characters with inner conflicts.

The characters I write about are very internal.

You're trying to bring an emotional and psychological reality to a character that's on the page and make them three-dimensional.