George R. R. Martin Quotes

I think the parts that I played sort of broke the mould in terms of - you know, I played grey characters, the bad girl with a good heart, there was a good reason for her to be bad.

I loved 'Homeland' - it's such an intriguing, intelligent piece of television, and I am fascinated by them making a hero and heroine that are so odd, so flawed and so complicated. It is a programme that really draws you in.

We all are who we are. We're not necessarily good, and we're not necessarily bad. So much television, in the writing, is so one-dimensional, in that aspect, where you have your good guys and you have your bad guys.

I'm just attracted to playing people who are ostensible unlikable. That's not to say that there's something in there that makes you care. It might be that you just find them so awful that you just can't stop watching, like a car crash.

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.

Very few of my characters are totally heroic or totally villainous.

I happen to like movies and plays about dislikeable people as long as I get to know why they are what they are.

In general, I think writing characters, no one is 100 percent good or bad, and certainly, the bad characters never think they're bad themselves. Even the worst characters don't feel like they're bad guys on the inside.

I like complicated characters.

It's certainly more interesting for me as an actor, but I think it's also more interesting for the audience to see three-dimensional characters, rather than just a bad guy or a good guy.

I thought that would be kind of cool, to make a bad guy look sympathetic.

Usually, characters that are doing something nefarious have some extra layers to them. The general rule is bad people don't necessarily think they are bad.

The characters that have greys are the more interesting characters. The hero who sometimes crosses the line and the villain who sometimes doesn't are just much more interesting.

No characters in 'Stay Close,' including the leads, are black and white. I want them to be grey. I think that makes for a much more interesting reading experience, something that will stay with you a little bit longer.

I like the characters that have some redeeming quality or if it's interesting to me in any way.

Some of my acting heroes have built careers on playing characters who do horrendous things - they're repellent and lovable. They're not likable, but they're lovable. I think Christine is one of those characters.

I like playing complex, interesting characters. Sometimes I don't think there's much of a strong line between right and wrong for a character. Every character is somewhere on a moral spectrum.

For me, especially with the villain, it's not very interesting to write a guy who is just 100% bad.

I don't like characters who are either good or bad. I just don't experience that in life, so my writing hasn't evolved that way.

I wanted to make room for antiheroes.

I've always been interesting in characters that challenge people and who are not always that easy to like.

In other films and TV shows, we might say, "Well, they're just evil." In our show [Daredeval], we're trying to say, "There's bad actions, but not necessarily bad people."

I'm very, very attracted to morally ambiguous characters, not just pure bad guys or pure good guys.

It's really interesting to play someone you wouldn't want to ever spend more than a couple of drinks with - but who has redeemable characteristics.

There's something really charming about a character that is fundamentally flawed and does some pretty despicable things, but yet you still kind of love him.