Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

If you have a character that seems to be all perfect, it's hard to relate to him because when you read a story you really want to empathize with the character that you are reading about. And it's hard to empathize with someone who is flawless and who has no problems.

Well, on a personal level, I would never want to take on a character who didn’t have some redeemable qualities. Even the worst of people, such as Michael Scott in The Office [Carell’s character in the US version of the Ricky Gervais sitcom], have some decent human qualities that you can latch onto.

Make sure your main characters are likeable. They can be flawed, but your readers need to be able to root for them.

I like characters where there's something going on and something to make him real. If you find out what somebody cares about, all of a sudden, the whole world opens up.

I'm just looking for touching characters.

I don't like the idea the viewer can kind of sit there and go, 'Make me like this person.' People aren't inherently sympathetic.

I'm less interested in slasher, and go more for roles that can affect you on a personal level. I'm interested in human empathy in the movies I see, and in the ones I am a part of.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

I think, ultimately, if you create characters that people like and can relate to, your characters are grounded on a human level even if your cars are not.

I'm focused on finding characters I connect to.

You play the honesty of the characters and show a side of them that people can relate to and want to get to know.

Everyone relates to the heroes - that's why they're the heroes. But I've realized there are just more layers to characters who have been through something dark.

If you care about [the characters] as if they were real, that always helps.

It doesn't matter whether characters are real people or not; if they're not vivid on the page, then the reader doesn't care about them that much, and, if the reader doesn't care about them that much, then they don't care what happens to them.

The great thing about playing a character that's similar to the audience, or similar to you, is that you get to have the same reaction that you would actually have to whatever's going on.

if an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.

. . . I felt that making her one-dimensional would be an insult to the audience, and also not as interesting. All destructive people have an inner side to them, and the more three-dimentional your characters are on screen the more compassion you can open up in an audience . . .. To me, that involves the audience more, it stimulates them and asks more of them.

You have to imbue the characters with their own sort of feeling of justification and morality. Everyone has that, whether we see them as evil or not. So I try to bring the characters to life by making them likable or lovable, in the sense that they can be, at least to themselves.

Clever's not enough to hold me - I want characters who are more than devices to be moved about for Effect.

I find that if I hold your hand, it transfers an energy first. I have a sense of how you feel. That's important to me trying to become another person. I have a lot pressure to bring a character to life in any kind of real sense.

I believe in characters that can be tangible, and that you can actually relate to.

Even when you think you can detach yourself from the characters, you don't. Because you're spending so much time trying to realize this person and make them real that they do infect you, in a way. And you do take them home and live with them, even if you think you're turning the character off. But in order to pull off a role convincingly, you wind up thinking about that person all the time, and it does sort of creep into you. And then there are things that you'll respond to, or react to in a very different way than you would normally.

No matter what character your play. I feel like whenever anyone is honest and whole and well-written, you're going to be able to connect to that person because we're all kinda made up of the same stuff and I think that's always one of the really powerful things about approaching each individual character and role and film.

I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character.

Even if the character is something that seems ridiculous on paper, there's a human element to everything. Otherwise, we don't connect with it.