Peter Milligan Quotes

I've found contemporary Britain difficult to write about because it seems to me to have lacked gravity or grandeur. This is some cultural problem which I don't really understand. It simply isn't the same in the United States.

As a rule, Michael Balcon was at great pains to ensure Ealing remained very British. There was no point our trying to be MGM, and we didn't see a lot of American stars.

We've never adopted Americanisms. We are a very British band from a very British cultural scene. We fly that flag and that is something I enjoy.

In the U.S., Superman or Batman or something, the law-enforcement people, are the most famous comic characters. Americans have a respect, I think, for badges and a respect for uniforms. I think that's, in some ways, quite a nice thing, but it can be dangerous, too, because it can obviously be abused.

I don't aim it at anybody specific, I don't aim my characters to make old people laugh or young people or professionals or blue collar, just whatever I think is going to be funny and it just so happens that.

I definitely wanted to pay homage to what he did and use his performance in the first one as a foundation. But, I had to make it my own. I couldn't sit there and try to imitate Michael Clarke Duncan. I think that would have been disastrous. I had to make it my own. I tried to take as many nuances that he had with the character and utilize them as best I could, while creating a character that was unique to me. That's going to happen, no matter what.

Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history. There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness and you must care less and less what people think of you.

American culture is kind of an international culture, isn't it? British culture is a bit more unique. I think funny things are sort of funny around the world, really.

There's nothing comparative to Damien [the current Robin] or any of the other characters. I love those characters. And this isn't, "This is better than that." I think a couple of people misread what we had said in the first issue about that stuff.

We, Brits, need to be sort of loosened up. And there's some transfer overseas, I think the more American fare that comes to the U.K., the more cross-fertilization there is that's perhaps changing.

I grew up on Bond, and it is part of my culture, especially in Britain. Just to be known as a Bond girl is an incredible thing for me, because some of my favorite actresses have been Bond girls, like Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman, and they have continued to work and be brilliant. I am honored and flattered to be called that, even though I don't really think my character is Bond-girly, but I'm still going to be labeled as a Bond girl, which is completely brilliant.

I was thinking about the difference in voice between the different characters. Each voice has to be unique. Hypothetically you should be able to read each chapter without the heading that tells you who is telling the story.

With the Israel stories, it was for me the most surprising way the title would fit in. I kept thinking about, for a lot of my Israeli characters, what it was like to inherit such a complicated and symbiotic relationship to America and to feel how tangled that is, and it's nothing that they chose to do themselves.

I think everything you do, characters I always find, have their own voices and once you establish who that character is you find a different voice. I think it's just a question of establishing that character and the voice speaks through that character.

I think the universal themes of "American Pie" are what make it attractive to everybody. How to people relate to these characters? It's because these five male characters in this movie wouldn't ordinarily be in the same friend group and they each have their own part to play in the whole thing. There's a character for everybody in this movie that they can relate to... that they either were or knew someone that was. To cover the range like that is pretty unique to our franchise.

The lack of predictability with television is something that's constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is.

I think my favorite is Honor Blackman because she is classy and she is British. With Bond, I love how British it is actually. She is classy and clever and smart and sharp.

I think people look at me and realize that I am definitely not in line to the throne. It feels very easy living in Great Britain. The world is a much smaller place than it used to be, it doesn't feel like a huge cultural difference living here.

I have a lot of people who are soap fans and they definitely know who I am, even if they call me by my character's name. I get a lot of people thinking maybe they know me from high school. My career has been a slow burn, a gradual rise, which I prefer since this is a marathon and not a sprint, so I kind of like where I am and where I'm going.

I think it's what we've always tried to do, is just find a unique way in, and find a unique way to be true to what the character is from the comics and what fans are aware of and expecting. And at the same time do it in a way that mainstream audiences and as wide an audience as possible can find their own way into it.

When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.

"Ecod, you may say what you like of my father, then, and so I give you leave," said Jonas. "I think it's liquid aggravation that circulates through his veins, and not regular blood..."

When I think about [characters], I like to think of them in their relationships to each other. In the same way, I think that's how humans are ultimately defined. We are our relationships to one another. And a lot of what's interesting about us happens in the context of other people.

I think if you're able to do over the course of your career 20, 30, 50 very wonderful rich characters, you'd rather have that than an Oscar.

I just think that the qualities of leadership are unknown even to the leader until he's tested and given a challenge.