Taylor Sheridan Quotes

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.

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

All of my characters are less than perfect.

Flaws make us all human, and you're rooting for characters because of those flaws. It's ageless if you're interested in relationships and the way people can or can't relate to each other.

It seems to me that most characters, in anything, are flawed in some way, just like most people. You look for the good in the flawed people and vice versa, and then try and make them appealing in some way.

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.

In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person.

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

Everyone is usually screwed up in some way and that is usually where the work comes in - figuring out how to make it believable and make it real to present someone's problems that you don't necessarily actually know anything about.

In order to make characters real - no matter what the character is doing - you have to see yourself as capable of having done that.

It's important to determine not just the quality of your mind but the fullness of your heart.

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 think heroes who are not flawed are not believable.

Every character, before they are heroes or villains, they are human beings.

I choose grey characters, as I enjoy playing a human character. I don't shy away from showing the shortcomings of my characters.

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.

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.

I think there is something in my books that says these are people doing their best under difficult circumstances - sometimes they do wrong things and make mistakes, but who doesn't? And who wants to read about somebody who never does?

I like playing characters that are true to life, and there's no guarantee that any of us are going to be okay, but we intend to be, and we take the time to try to be. I don't think it's any different for a character.

Exposing characters and their shortcomings gives me great comfort. It's always great to write about someone more mixed up than yourself.

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

I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.

I like my heroes to be imperfect; I like them to be striving. I identify with that kind of aspiration to do better.

As an actor, I've given up judgement of evil, as long as it's human evil - we have to see ourselves for what we really are, and we're capable of horrific things.

Some of my favorite shows are ones where the characters are vile and human and flawed. That's what makes me want to keep watching a show, not writers telling me how to feel about characters.