Stephen Sondheim Quotes

I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.

My company is known for being funny as well as moving. You get a bit of everything in these shows. I think people know they're going to have a surprising experience.

I'm obsessed with giving the audience something they don't see coming.

It's nice getting to play a different version of yourself. You sign on for a show and think you're just going to play one character for however many years, so it's nice, for an actor, to have a little bit of fun.

Well,the fun part of being a writer is that it's like making a wonderful film, with no limit on my budget. I can design the sets, the costume, the lightings, I write the script, and then I get to perform all the roles as I step into each character's skin, zip up, and adopt that point of view. So, to me, they are all compelling and fascinating.

I look for characters that are fun and that I'm going to have fun playing. By the way, that's whether it's drama, sci-fi, action, comedy, family movies or action-comedy. I just always want to have fun doing it. That's the bottom line.

It was a pleasure to have somebody else be the boss. It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun any other way. He's been around and made a lot of movies and he's a great straightforward person to work for. And it was a pleasure to see other people to pick up characters that you've sketched out loosely on paper and make them into something fascinating.

What interests Sam Mendes are characters and relationships, and he was a genius at giving you the freedom to create the type of character you want, and also to explore and have fun with your fellow actors. For him, characters and relationships are really the heartbeat of the film, and then the action is the backdrop. By developing the characters, he makes you care that much more about the action and going on a journey with the characters.

I always try to do something very different with each character because that's why I like to do this, because I can become someone else completely and it's fun.

There are no new stories. It all depends on how you handle them. In romances the characters are going to fall in love with each other; you know that when you see the syrupy cover. It's how get there that's the fun.

It's good fun to create an unpredictable character. When he comes into the room, I don't know what he's going to do - I have to find my way.

Have fun, entertain yourself with your work, make yourself laugh and cry with your own stories, make yourself shiver in suspense along with your characters. If you can do that, then you will most likely find a large audience; but even if a large audience is never found, you'll have a happy life.

I'm not a massive fan of just playing myself on screen. If you can play lots of different characters, that's fun. As long as the material is good, that's what the attraction is for me.

For me, I just like to be as fun as possible, but I do like to bring a lot to a character. Given the script or the show, I know my boundaries, limits, and how far I can go with it. As far as me choosing these characters that have a lot of personality, I don't necessarily think it's intentional. I just think that I try and come up with a backstory of who they are, depending on the script or how rounded these characters are, and just go from there.

Having an opportunity to play different characters, and work in different mediums, that's what's fun. The worst question you could be asked is, "What do you like better, film, television or theater?"

You just can never count on a formula, on a movie that you think is going to be a big hit, and that's why you do it. You have to choose each one for what you think you'll learn and the fun you'll have. And maybe the cool people that you work with or a character that you're going to be able to explore ... You just keep your fingers crossed.

I always like to be a step ahead of the audience by surprising them and the best way to do that is to not hold back.

Unlike other books or TV shows or sometimes life, my narrative worlds are stripped of implicit moral centers. There is only what you bring. That makes the characters risky in every way and the narrative, a journey of change for the reader. But I make the journey as fun as I can.

I really enjoy just being an actor. It's fun to be surprised by someone else's writing and to collaborate in creating a character and to leave all the hard decision-making to some other room full of suckers!

for me the most fun of my career is to bring a little bit of irreverence to characters. And, you know, I don't think that the producers were expecting me to be as irreverent as I am.

It's fun to play a character when you can't concern yourself with how sympathetic they are.

If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to surprise you.

I crave the diversity because I'm an actor and it's more fun to play different types of characters, but I'm pretty spontaneous as well, so I don't rule anything out.

It was fun to create characters who had truth to them but were also made up so as not to completely offend!

It was a lot of fun to play a character [in Swiss Army Man] with no inhibitions, and with no knowledge of the world, and who comes into the world kind of like a blank slate. It means there's no template or blueprint for how you need to play certain scenes.