Nicole Holofcener Quotes

I don't categorize characters into one syllable. These are fully-rounded characters that I don't judge; I just play them.

Whatever character you play, whatever film it is, whatever story it is, for me, in my training it's always something that gives you a layered character, it's understanding the secret of that character, and so whatever comes up as "Oh, I thought that person was that," you are always carrying that within you. So actually what you're playing all the way through is both and it's just what comes out in the scene or the circumstance.

The easier you make it look, the more difficult it is. Creating characters out of nothing, and making them interesting - and that's another advice I would give to writers.

I think the best way to become a character is by osmosis as opposed to thinking directly about stuff. The more material that you have and understand and have a going in, then the more complex your character and the understanding of your character will be.

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. Flat characters ... in their purest form ... are constructed round a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor to them, we get the beginning of the curve toward the round. The really flat character can be experessed in one sentence such as, "I will never desert Mr Micawber." There is Mrs Micawber - she says she won't desert Mr Micawber; she doesn't, and there she is.

...being written by someone who might not quite understand the subconscious nuance of the character leaves us in varying degrees of flatness.

I don't think male characters are as one-dimensional as female characters.

I was very excited to hone in on John Goodman. Casting John first really set the tone. He's very good at being terrifying and being hilarious, and I loved the idea of that character not being merely 'moustache-twirly'. I enjoyed being scared by him.

When complicated characters aren't well drawn, they're boring.

I think there's grays in characters if you look at all the great characters, those characters that have those layers of being good and being bad and what's the struggle. It's always more interesting to watch.

I try to have a balance of things you like and things you don't like about a character. But once you start that, all these scripts are like, "You play the douchebag friend of Ashton Kutcher." It's all these characters that are overconfident or hyper-masculine.

To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.

I'm hesitant to do leading man character roles because I think they can be a little boring in terms of needing to be the everyman who navigates the amazing stuff around them.

I just look for characters that have dimensions. If I don't see it written on the page, then I try to put it in there somehow. You don't want to play the same role twice.

I feel my fuller-bodied characters are all in the independent films I do, and in the studio productions, I have to work harder to dimensionalize the characters. And that's certainly part of the job description of an actor - that's what you're supposed to do - but you have to work harder at it in the characters that I've encountered in studio films.

In a story, for example, you'll start off with a character who is a little bit of a cartoon. That's not satisfying and you start revising. And as you revise you always are making it better by being specific and by observing more closely, which actually is really the same as saying you love your characters. The close observation equals love of them.

The best characters are always wretchedly flawed

The most interesting characters are those you're drawn to, then repelled by, and then come to understand. All that tension - I live that. But I don't plan the tension. It's just something that should happen.

The challenge was the opportunity. When I read the first draft of Steve Kloves' fabulous adaptation - I hadn't read [Michael] Chabon's book at that time - what I was immediately captivated by was this group of characters that were at once so engaging and so messed up.

When you're playing a character who's cruel, look for the places where he's kind. When you're playing a character who is unhappy, look for the places where he has a glint of merriment.

I think you approach a part the same way and just find out in what's making them tick and who they are. In a movie like this you may have a little less time and few dialogue scenes and exposition scenes for your character to really get that across, and so I wanted to be able to convey that she's not somebody who's just punching a clock but she has this weird emotional investment in her job to where she does get quite myopic and that's what makes her relentless.

I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character.

I love character roles. I'm happier in them. I look for roles that have some kind of complexity.

On the surface, Wonder Boys seemed like such a departure from L.A. Confidential - it's funny, it's contemporary, and so on - and yet at a certain point, I had a feeling that reminded me how I felt when I was shooting L.A. Confidential. I analyzed it for a while, and thought about how emotionally involved I was with the characters. Then I realized that in both movies, there are three main male characters and one female, and all of them are struggling to figure out what they're doing with their lives, independent of each other.

I can't always pick and choose, but I try very hard to take the roles where they are a bit more human. Sometimes there's a hilarious thing that comes along and it might not be the most interesting character, but I'm just delighted to be able to do something.