Adam McKay Quotes

When Peter Jackson did The Lord of the Rings trilogy with Fellowship of the Ring, not everyone had read Tolkien, and yet somehow with that scope and the spectacle of that fantasy, people were willing to give it a shot. And when they watched the first one, the characters drew them in and they started understanding the story. And then, all of a sudden, they were The Lord of the Rings fans, even if they never read Tolkien.

My feeling has always been if you entertain people, they give you permission to do more on a thematic or character level.

I've always believed in populating my films with characters who we like, who we have some warmth for, who have warmth for each other, who we would like to hang out with, who we emulate in one way or another. It's not that they all get along, or that there aren't bad people or people we make fun of. But at the core, there's a kind of sweetness.

Trying to find a human side to the character is a way to give them a chance to have people like them.

Il ne faut point donner d'esprit a' ses personnages; mais savoir les placer dans des circonstances qui leur en donnent. You should not give wit to your characters, but know instead how to put them in situations which will make them witty.

Writing stories, adopting other characters, making up fantastic stories and tales, this is a way of perhaps enhancing who I am. Writing stories takes a commonplace old life and makes it all somehow more interesting. And hopefully I can do that in a way that touches a lot of people in their lives, too.

Money makes people rich; it is a fallacy to think it makes them better, or even that it makes them worse. People are what they do, and what they leave behind.

I just want to play interesting characters, and I want to work with the best directors I can work with.

I kind of put myself out there a lot just because I trust the people I'm working with. You have to see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes it's not my job to find that out, it's just my job to do what the character calls for. And if you change the character I'll do that too.

Taking on an iconic character is difficult, sure, people associate different actors with a character that you're playing, but there's something in rehearsing and developing a new character.

I was on Stargate: Atlantis for four years, playing a similar character called Ronon, who was an alien that didn't say much and grunted. I've been there and done that. Whether people have seen it or not, you want to stretch. And then, while I waited, I got The Red Road, and I'd never gotten anything like that.

There are so many people who are clever. There are 8000 people at Princeton who are more clever than the three of us at this table. BUT, we have the ability to give something that they don't have...which is us.

At the time, I used to say, "We should market this like Everybody Loves Raymond. It's just a guy dealing with his family." Instead, it was irresistible to show all these funny people. So, I actually think this could be more inviting to a new audience because they can just watch one character, find out what's going on in his life, and then meet another character and find out what's going on in her life, and then see how it intersects the other one.

To choose the ideal voice for a character is to give a character an ardent and vivid life, to allow him or her to speak, rather than speaking for them, in an older style of omniscient narration.

Helen Lowe writes wonderful stories, yes, but her work also speaks with lyricism to deeper questions of how we treat each other. With lovely prose that brings vivid life to her characters, she creates a universe with people we care about. This is an author with a gift for fantasy.

I don't really pity any of my characters. I hold my characters under a harsh fluorescent lamp and ask "Who are you?" I'm not doing their makeup or giving them hairdos. They present themselves to me as they are and then I let them say what they want. Usually they're saying something too honest.

I'm myself - knowing I'm doing a documentary and speaking with the people, telling them I have a bed, that I can eat every day, but I would like to speak to you. And they really gave me wonderful answers. We got along very well without trying to make me look like I'm what I'm not.

If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality.

For me, what grabs my attention about the project is usually the character immediately and then the story, and then the people that are involved.

All my roles are character roles. On the other hand, there are those people who have an inner...I think we all do the same thing. You can't get by on aura alone. That I know. Everyone has to dig in. Everyone has to do the same set of, "What is this about? What is this character doing?" Everybody from Spencer Tracy to Brad Pitt to Jeffrey Tambor.

I love people like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, people who create and write their own stuff - especially when there's just not enough cool, interesting characters out there.

Very often the characters people respond to best have little parts of reality they can relate to.

I spend a long time casting, but once I've cast a film there's a reason why I selected those people. So I'm hands-on in selecting the cast, hands-off to see what they do with their characters, and hands-on again to offer suggestions.

Actors want to work. Give them characters they want to play, or a story they want to tell, and hopefully the budget will follow.