Geoff Johns Quotes

It's always interesting researching characters and as I get older and the more that I work in this business, I do more and more of it because I realize how important it is.

The thing about being an actor is that as we get older, there are more and more characters to explore and, in general, they get more complicated, so you get to bring all your crazy life experience to the table.

I don't really read any comics, but when I got casted on the show, I starting reading 'The Walking Dead' comics. I felt like I needed a better idea of the character.

The strange thing is, if I was speaking to drama students about the thing that you should do if you're lucky enough to know or to meet the character that you're playing, I'd say, 'It's obvious: you quiz them diligently about their experience.'

Human character is just endlessly fascinating, and there is no character who is one thing any more than any one person is just one thing. As you work on a character, he/she is revealed more and more. That's what I continue to love about the work.

When you write a character and their dialogue, you can't help imagining how you would be acting if you were them. You kind of have to relate to all of them. It's the most personal thing I've ever done.

I felt like if I could get the epiphany out of the way in my drafting process, through my eighth or tenth draft, then that can just be part of how I've assembled the character, and then we can move on and move forward with it. In general, I don't ever want to feel smarter than my characters, because I just feel like that's not a great way to write a story.

Whatever character you're playing you have to complete the entire interior infrastructure, whatever it is - but what gets divulged or what people completely understand depends on the script and what you decide to show. But you have to know it.

As an actor, you learn, every time you work.

All that matters to me as a reader are characters. I want characters to be real, authentic, and rounded. I will be digging into characters for at least a month. Who they are. What they are like. Outside of the story.

"A meteor hits planet Earth" - that's a story idea but that doesn't give me any indication of what the character is.

But, as an actress, you don't want to run into these scenes, willy-nilly. The couple that I did do were important for the character and essential to the plot, to show what was actually going on between each character. It is great to be able to have that, and to be able to say certain things and have certain passions.

As you're learning your lines and the character you're playing, you're going to make mistakes but I learned more about Shug Avery. I learned my lines, but everything had to be done quickly.

I find the characters in my head and the more I write about them, the better I get to know them.

You have to find something you relate to in every character.

As you become acquainted with a character you are creating, you add parts of yourself that are pertinent to that character.

He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.

I would never have been a novelist without working as a psychologist...it was a great education in human nature.

Get inside her head. Get inside any character's head and ask what they want in this scene. And if you work from the perspective of what they want, there's not going to be any wrong answer. There's going to be some boring answers, but none of them are going to be wrong. As long as she has agency, then you're on the right track.

If you look at a character as a mountain over there that you have to climb, then I think you've lost 50 percent of the air.

Acting is a weird thing. You've gotta do it to get better, and you've gotta try things to grow.

Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors.

It is the task of the scenarist to invent little pieces of business that are so characteristic and give so deep an insight into his creatures, that their personalities clearly and organically unfold before the eyes of the audience so that the latter feel that the actions of these people are contingent upon their characters, that there exists some kind of a logical fate, and that nothing is left to mere accident or coincidence.

Cease to be a disobedient child in the school of experience, and begin to learn, with humility and patience, the lessons that are set for your ultimate perfection.

What interests me when I'm writing is being able to crawl into a character's head and speak from his or her mouth. It's not pulling the strings on a marionette, it's not playing ventriloquist, and it's not mimicry. It's about inhabiting a character, and, at the same time, being totally unaware of what you've become.