Peter Gould Quotes

I like my characters to be ones I think about long after I've finished reading the script.

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.

After a while, the character sort of took over.

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

I think often times on Joss Whedon's shows he can make you hate a character for a period and then love the character. He does it effortlessly.

For me to have the opportunity to stay with one character for, God willing, a long period of time, is really exciting.

There are certain things that I know I don't want to do anymore. Playing out-and-out terrorists who terrorise people and don't actually move the conversation on are not worth doing. So that's probably another reason I don't go back to America, because a lot of it is like that. It's boring, dull, very lazy writing.

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.

In a series, you really need to stay open-minded. It's not like a play or a film, where you can create and fully commit to your character's back-story.

The world is full of novels in which characters simply say and do. There are certainly legitimate genres in which this is sufficient. But in real and lasting writing the character is.

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.

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.

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

There's something really satisfying if you've created a bunch of characters that have withstood 25 episodes.

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.

On 'Swingtown,' I think that's when I was able to blend the character-slash-leading lady roles, and that's what I'm doing on 'Once Upon a Time' as well. She's a leading lady, but she's also this character.

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

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

I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that make the characters human.

I usually start with a repulsive character and go on from there.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.

My books usually end where they began. I try to bring characters back to a point that is familiar but different because of the growth that they have gone through.

I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist.