Taylor Sheridan Quotes

In television writing, you want to hear what the characters say as opposed to giving them something to say. It's the same with the cartoons.

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe it's because I talk too much!

Well, I've always been a character actor, you know, and you always get your share of character actors who are bad guys. So it never surprises me. And if it's good writing, you can find your way into the part well enough.

The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

Good acting is confused with good dialogue delivery. Acting is about all about performance, and the way we interpret and understand the character that we bring alive onscreen.

Write dialogue that supports the situation and the characters, as you find them.

Producing is figuring out how to make each character have a distinct voice, how to make the story twist and turn - that's the biggest challenge.

I rarely do any back story. I often get a thick bible of back story, but I can't use it. The back story is a tool of the writer. But I can only act what's in the scene.

After 'Mulk,' I figured it's your voice that people are connecting with. So then my voice became of prime importance to me for my films.

You have more creative freedom with writing, in certain ways, because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your character is reacting to situations.

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you're playing a scene, you're not making choices; you're just intuitive.

Movie characters rarely get to think out loud or talk very much about their emotions. Instead they have to, very briefly, show their feelings through their action or through dialog.

Once you've established where you are, you go to the character and elaborate on expressions and action.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.

When you see something that is well-written, the actors can get behind it.

If you know exactly what your character knows, it's a drama.

That is one of the first things my family, my mother and my grandfather, had taught me about acting: 'Use your eyes!' Not being able to do that physical aspect of it, and having to put it all into your voice? That was a little bit of a challenge.

It's bad writing, however naturalistic it's written, that's where you have to do your best acting.

Somebody said something really smart: It's like you end up being the defense attorney for your role. Your job is to defend their point of view. You're fighting for what they want. You learn that in acting school - it's Acting 1A: 'What do you want? What's in the way?'

Supporting characters add depth to a story, and great actors leave their imprint with the audience.

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