David Nevins Quotes

I like shows that have some level of intelligence to them. When it's not as predictable, when you don't know what's coming at you.

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 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.

I really want to work on characters that have a lot of complexity and you don't always get that in comic book movies because they're not character explorations. I have nothing against movies like that, but I do see them as kind of like a cheeseburger.

As a writer, I have to show complexities. Through my writings, I hope to bring out people in different situations and not just one-dimensional beings.

I hate when you see a film and after one scene you know what's going to happen and you can predict the whole story.

Sometimes people are like, 'Do you want to play strong women?' I don't have to play strong women in order to feel like a strong woman myself, but I do feel it's important to play characters that are complex and interesting and believable.

I continue to be known as a guy that plays really complex, three-dimensional characters.

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

I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.

I'm interested in characters that are complex people.

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

I think I'm drawn to characters with complexity or who are under duress in some way and have some conflict going on.

I love playing characters that are bigger than life and maybe have a darker side that they present to the world. Those are good characters.

The bad guys are not typical; they are not just bad, they are interesting. They might be good or bad.

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

In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.

I like complicated characters.

The characters, to me, in 'Homeland' are not one note in any way.

I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.

I like playing characters that are complex, that are intriguing, that come from left field, that do things that are unexpected. I don't like people who just follow one line and that's it - that's why I could never be in a sitcom, I don't think. They're not intriguing enough for me.

I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated.

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 totally respond to complex characters, and I'm not interested in anything too simple.

I like shows that are ensemble-based, that explore the humanity of every character.