Toby Jones Quotes

I can't impersonate someone. That is not what I do. I can only take someone's essence and create a character out of that.

If I can look at each character that I am given and create them in a different way from the last role, I'm happy.

David Corbett's The Art of Character offers a deep inquiry into the creation of character for the novice writer, with valuable nuggets of wisdom for the seasoned storyteller. If you are a writer, it should be on your desk.

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

Because I don't do stand-up, radio has always been my equivalent, a place to stay in connection with the public and force myself to write every week and come up with new characters. Plus it's a medium that – having grown up with it and putting myself to sleep with a radio under my pillow [as a kid] – I love. No matter what picture you want to create in the listener's mind, a few minutes of work gets it done.

I collect names for characters. Names are valuable; they can be your first source of insight into a character.

I felt so much when I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, I felt everything. I didn't understand [myself], I was so happy yet so angry and sad. That was the point when I realized that I needed to tell stories and make characters come alive and I needed to make people cry, and make people angry, and make people happy, and make them laugh.

Writers of either gender ought to be able to do the opposite sex-that's one basic test of competence, after all.

There's a point I can get to where I start writing character and then through the dialogue, after all of this preparation, the thing starts to feel like it's a character developing through the dialogue. A lot of character traits do come from writing dialogue, but I have to be ready to do it.

It's always so much fun to create backstory. Even if there are more clues in the script, you still always have to invent a lot for yourself. I think that comes naturally.

When you write a novel, you make other people see your imaginary friends.

Writing, even though it's hard work, is really a joy when you get these characters to come alive. It's hard to trace where they come from. I can't say that I am sitting here one night at nine o'clock and that a character occurs to me. The magic for me happens at the typewriter.

Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!)

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

Do the work. Create the character, don't wing it and don't hope for an award or the Red Carpet. At the end of day the people who stay in the line the longest are the people who are good.

For me, the best characters are the ones that feel fully formed inside and out, so I try to have a very clear vision of exactly what they would wear, top to bottom, who they are, what their backstory is, what their family situation is, who are their friends, just creating as much of a three-dimensional character [as possible]. Because I think you could do a very broad character, but as long as there's some emotional truth to them you can get away with really crazy things.

I want to be able to create characters for as long as I can and I want to tell stories for as long as I can but unfortunately I'm not given those opportunities because I'm often boxed into the former category...

Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.

Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are good things too.

I wanted to learn a little bit about acting, not because I thought I'd find a star vehicle and set the world on fire, but I thought the discipline of it would be good for me. I met a good coach, and I joined her class - with a lot of hungry young actors who really didn't acre if I was a rock 'n' roll singer or not. I started to learn to get a focus, without having to jump up and down every few seconds.

If you create a character, you create a destiny.

People who are well-known, famous people, I think, make very poor characters for fiction. They make good characters for gossip columns. But not for fiction.

The recipe for any character is always very interesting, as far as what doses of certain qualities you want.

I think a lot of creators are attracted to those toys they got to play with when they were young, and everyone wants to write a Superman story or a Batman story or a Spider-Man story. I don't know, if it's been successful for me, it should be successful for anyone. "Hit the ground with your feet running" is the secret of breaking new characters when it seems like no one else is having any luck.

Your character that you create in your writing not only represents who you are, but also represents a number of people who you've met along the way.