John Hillcoat Quotes

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.

I'm drawn to villains that are three-dimensional and raw and that I can kind of see in my own life.

I don't want a perfect character, I want a character who has, as strange as it sounds, some humanity, some flaws, some needs.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

The calling of the humanities is to make us truly human in the best sense of the word.

I try genuinely, when I'm playing a character, to not judge them and just to inhabit someone as how one sees them. That being said, you also want to make sure that you don't blur the edges of people too much because humans are naughty and complicated beings.

I let characters be human and flawed and relatable. When we do things that aren't that great, we can understand it.

The hero is changing in Bollywood, and I approach a hero's role like a character by focusing on its weaknesses. I feel the weaknesses of a character make them more alive, relatable, and human.

I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.

Stanley didn't shy away from true humanity or from the ugliness that all people are capable of.

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. Even the real monsters have to have a spark of something you can relate to.

We, people, are so very, very complicated that no matter how well drawn a fictional character is, they can't get anywhere near as complex as a real person.

There are two men in Tolstoy. He is a mystic and he is also a realist. He is addicted to the practice of a pietism that for all its sincerity is nothing if not vague and sentimental; and he is the most acute and dispassionate of observers, the most profound and earnest student of character and emotion.

You can't think that you're playing a villain, or you'll end up with a cartoon. You have to think about him as a person and a hero.

I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.

I'm attracted to playing characters that have flaws.

We're all complex human beings, and if some of that complexity shows through, I think it's advantageous for the movie.

I can't do a role or character unless I have lived that character. For me, the best teacher is life.

Perfect heroes are cool, but no one can really empathize or identify with them.

We're all flawed, and we all make mistakes, and we all have weaknesses. And those are the kind of people I want to see onscreen, the ones that feel like real flesh-and-blood human beings and not the weird, whitewashed, Hollywood stand-ins for people with the rough edges sanded off that I can't connect to because they just don't resonate with me.

I think a lot of people relate to some of my characters' inner struggles.

I'm just writing about people. People are dark and complicated. I'm trying to tell the truth; that's all that I do.

Well, I just wanted to be a person. I just wanted them to keep writing me as humanistic as possible.

I love the powerful woman who's complicated. There's no push to be one thing or another thing. It's all human. That's what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible.

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.