Demian Bichir Quotes

I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

I'm focused on finding characters I connect to.

If you care about [the characters] as if they were real, that always helps.

If you have a character that seems to be all perfect, it's hard to relate to him because when you read a story you really want to empathize with the character that you are reading about. And it's hard to empathize with someone who is flawless and who has no problems.

I remember when I was a kid, I loved Sherlock Holmes. I thought Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the greatest writers, because I felt I knew Sherlock Holmes. He existed to me. When I went to England the first thing I did was go to Baker Street to look for his house. I think you've got to try to make all of your characters as empathetic and realistic as possible.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me.

In all my characters, I try to find an iota of myself, and in Castle, I found a lot. He gets away with a lot, so that's fun.

The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

In terms of the characters I think are really fun to play, a lot of times it's someone in my head saying 'I know that woman.'

I think the key is to give the reader characters they not only care about, but identify with, and to never take away all hope.

But there's the paradox of fiction - why do you cry when a fake character dies? It's the basis of art. You engage with people who don't exist and care about them as you would your friends and relatives.

Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.

Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.

I don't like the idea the viewer can kind of sit there and go, 'Make me like this person.' People aren't inherently sympathetic.

I love making characters real and believable, through my own experience and choices.

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.

I have a lot of real life experience that I can draw on. And I think that shows in the characters that I play because I'm always trying to find somebody - or find characters to play that I can identify with on a personal level or relate to. And I think it makes for a little bit more of an honest portrayal.

Readers embrace all kinds of characters as long as they are written with emotional truth.

I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters.

In my acting, I have tried to do this - to present to audiences a living creature in whom they can recognise themselves or someone they know.

I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable.

These people are real to me, and situations keep coming up where their emergence feels natural. It's like meeting old friends. I hope readers feel the same way.