Martin Landau Quotes

I don't really approach stories to make them different from other stuff I've seen, I just try to get into the character, into his or her head. Try to make it as funny, as scary or as wild as I can so that I really like it.

I think really good drama comes down to real human emotion. That's what makes us all tick, and that's what I've always been drawn to when it comes to scripts is real human emotion and dealing with that.

You don't want to have a character say what's bothering him; you want to define characters by action.

Novels are . . . an unsurpassed form to understand people.

Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying

If you're dealing with a character that actually exists, there's an awful lot of information there. So, you can put together, from the information, motivations, insecurities, reactions. Where does that seed get born, if you like?... What I do is put that together.

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why. That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years and trying to get better at.

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

You decide which characters you want and then do the best you can to bring their humanity to the forefront in the context that you place them in - the crises in which you've placed them.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

I like taking a character at the most intense moments of their lives and exploring all that in full and then moving on.

I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.

I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'

You have to find something there that relates to the characters and reality on some level.

Any show I'm working on, I want the stories to always be about something, and to have the potential to be emotional. That's the kind of story that I like.

As a novelist, I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior and interactions.

If you know exactly what your character knows, it's a drama.

I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that make the characters human.

In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth.

It's people politics, people dynamics that make a show really good, whether it's 'Desperate Housewives' or 'Lost' or 'The Sopranos.' It's the people we've grown to love or otherwise.

There's a whole element of human interaction and character interaction that I really enjoy doing.

I think it's a short story writer's duty, as well as writing well about emotions and characters, to write story.

I am much more aware of making the plot more original, avoiding contrivance, having the story matter much more. I used to think more about symbols consciously. Now I think much more about the story.

Reading and discovering fiction has taught me how to empathise, understand falling in love and all those complex relationships that people have to deal with.

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