Jessica Chastain Quotes

I look for what responsibility the character has in telling the story. If you remove the role from the story, can you still tell the story properly? And if the answer is no, then I'm interested.

To be at the point in which I am playing characters that make such a difference to people and that really tell interesting and important stories, it took getting here to realize how important it is and how satisfying it is.

I take little bits and pieces of ideas that I may or may not believe in but I give them to this character and he runs with them. I have fun with however he handles the situation.

As an author you hope your characters have sparks but truly in the end they have minds of their own!

I like my characters to be ones I think about long after I've finished reading the script.

Because characters are your creations, you are the one who ultimately gets to decide their fate.

To me, it doesn't really matter how big the part is as long as the part is important to the story.

When you have a movie, you know who they start out as and where they go. But this is constantly changing, and you're growing with the character.

I'm all about the story. If I like the character and I think the story's entertaining, I'll do it.

As an actor, you always want to feel like what you're doing is making a difference to the story.

And almost always there has to be change, change in the characters is the journey - it's the story.

I thought I would keep the first name Susan and change the last name but I picked up this book and as I opened it the lead character in it was called Morgan Brittany.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

Actually, I get a little say in what my character would or wouldn't do.

After a while, the character sort of took over.

For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them. They should tell you what they'll do in any scene you put them in.

In a way, the characters often do take over.

Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.

Strangely enough, the first character in Fried Green Tomatoes was the cafe, and the town. I think a place can be as much a character in a novel as the people.

I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

The bedrock of 'Being Human' has to be characters. I would hope that even if suddenly we had a huge budget per episode, the foundation of the show, and the thing that actually makes it what it is, is character.

My favorite roles usually have to do with the story, if it's a good story I usually enjoy doing the character.

Plot makes the character just as history makes the man.

I am good when there is something central about the character. There is always a human theme I attach myself to. I am really looking for something that is moving or enlightening or something with depth as an actor. I look for these kinds of roles.