Theodore Melfi Quotes

One never wants to do anything that's going to break that 'sculpture of the character' that's been done so far, or make anything that's been done so far become illogical in any way, so you always want to try to connect when you're doing a series of films that has a continuous character.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

I think everybody goes through changes, and the same should be said for fictional characters, especially ones that you follow on television.

My life needed to be saved. Not just Foxy. That's my character. That's my work. Inga is a person.

Once you have invented a character with three dimensions and a voice, you begin to realize that some of the things you'd like him to do to further your plot are things that such a person wouldn't, or couldn't, do.

One reason I find all this character growth and narrative swerving so exhilarating is because I never got to do it when I wrote for TV. Our characters needed to remain consistent from week to week.

If you change a character too much, the audience falls out of love with the character, but characters need to evolve and grow over the years.

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me.

Usually when you have a sequel, the character always stays the same and that's true basically of 'Rocky III,' 'IV' and 'V.' He didn't really change.

'My character wouldn't do that.' That was always my favorite thing people say: 'My character wouldn't do that.' I said, 'Well, it says right here in this script your character does that.'

I would never, for the sake of the story or a twist, have a character do something that they just wouldn't do. I really couldn't. I'd rather miss out on the twist.

In film, because you know where the ending is, characters can change, but in television, you substitute revelation for change, and that can be hard to pull off.

It's nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It's fun to do that.

Maybe it'll be like 'The Simpsons,' and everybody will remain unchanged. Maybe that's what 'Glee's about. Maybe this is kind of a stasis show. I don't know.

What makes characters real are details, and if you're crafting a person from scratch, you're probably not going to pay as much attention to a question like, 'Does this person bite their nails?'

I think what good television does well is that it shows characters evolving.

My character on 'The Good Wife' is a smaller character, and his story arcs are typically season-long, unless it's a big episode for him. His transitions take place over many, many hours.

There is always that thought that you might get stuck with a character. But there's always the notion that every character is always evolving.

I'd never really been in a series, where you see a man at different points and perspectives in his life. Usually it's a film, where I'm playing a character who just comes in and offers something up.

I like taking a character at the most intense moments of their lives and exploring all that in full and then moving on.

My sister was the inspiration for the character, the good qualities instilled in the character. The initial inspiration was there, but Stargirl has taken on a life of her own. She's her own character now.

I'd love to do a film. I'd love to play a character that I know the beginning, middle and end of.

Characters can become boring. That's what's tricky about television. It goes on and on - you're playing this same character for five seasons and it gets easy to fall into just walking on the set and assuming you know how to play a scene.

I've often said the reader knows every bit as much about Thorne as I do. When I created him for 'Sleepyhead,' I was determined he should be a character who would develop, book by book, change and grow as we all do, and who - crucially - would be unpredictable.

One pleasure of working on a trilogy is watching characters warp and grow over time.