Ted Naifeh Quotes

The best characters are the ones that somehow manage to be both attractive and repulsive at the same time. If you do that, you're at the center of the universe - if you can find characters who are more ambiguous and can raise more questions than answers.

I like to play characters that are convincing, that aren't just straightforward and nice.

To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.

Every actor will tell you it's so much more fun to play the bad guy because usually those characters are more complex and more broad and more interesting, and have more sides to them.

I'm trying to get at something a little transcendent between humans. But at the same time, there's all that baggage: What's beautiful about humans is what's balanced by what's kind of ugly and petty and depressing.

I'm most drawn to characters who are compelling and repellant at the same time, very often right at the same moment, and who are frightening and funny all at once.

When you see a person, do you just concentrate on their looks? It's just a first impression. Then there's someone who doesn't catch your eye immediately, but you talk to them and they become the most beautiful thing in the world. The greatest actors aren't what you would call beautiful sex symbols.

Nobody's all good or bad, and nobody's all light or dark. Every human being has so many different aspects and facets to them. And there can be something noble and something really dark and dangerous going on in a person all at the same time.

A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible.

Beauty is subjective: Bette Davis wasn't beautiful, but she was more than beautiful.

Who doesn't love a funny girl who can look sexy at the same time?

I am unique, a sheep, intimidating, scared, powerful, beautiful, flawed, and perfect in the same moment.

Well, I'm clearly not ugly.

All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity. It's fun, and it's fun because it's hard.

I like a girl with natural beauty.

When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'

The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening and yet so fascinating, all at the same time.

Sometimes you see beautiful people with no brains. Sometimes you have ugly people who are intelligent, like scientists.

I think I can be beautiful with all the little stuff done, and I can be ugly. A lot of attractive actresses can't be ugly.

There's more depth to Lionel. What I am finding so interesting about playing him is there's all these different layers. I prefer playing Lionel because he's a human being.

I've seen some women who are not particularly attractive but they have an assurance, and there's something so attractive about someone who doesn't have to work so hard.

Being human is being a lot of things at the same time.

I always tell my students to complicate your characters: never make it easy for the reader. Nobody is ever one thing. That's what makes characters compelling.

I have played characters where I haven't been absorbed - you know, what I call a typical film leading man role where you just have to look gorgeous and be attractive and charming. It bores me. I like a bit of dirt, a bit of sand in the oyster.

I like characters who have two different things going on, whether it is Robin from 'Top Of The Lake' having that strength juxtaposed with the vulnerability and being in pain, or whether it is Peggy from 'Mad Men' with her naivety and her sort of idiocy at times, combined with her intelligence and courage really to do what she did at that time.