Amy Poehler Quotes

Whenever you have a role where you don't get to know anything about the character, you have to invent it yourself. You have to feel like it came from somewhere.

To try to create a character without a whole lot of information can be taxing. At the same time, it's fun to just stay on your toes and let the next bit of dialogue come in, and turn the page as you read the next script and see what they have in store for you next.

You always have to create the character from the ground up.

Every time when I start preparing my character for a movie, I always try to make up and create my own background story for the role in order to fill it with life.

When I'm breaking in a character like Jessica Jones, I have this amazing opportunity to create her backstory. It's all of the work that happens before I'm ever on camera... Writing 'Bonfire' was like doing all of that fun stuff; it was like 300 pages of prep work.

To create characters, one must build background. And one of the tools we use is improvisation.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

You have to start from a place of trying to create a character.

When we don't have all the details about our characters, we have to make it up to fill in all the details. So, for me, writing and acting go hand in hand.

I rarely do any back story. I often get a thick bible of back story, but I can't use it. The back story is a tool of the writer. But I can only act what's in the scene.

I mean, can I really create a full, three-dimensional character? I don't know anymore. I'm certainly going to try.

You have more creative freedom with writing, in certain ways, because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your character is reacting to situations.

I just love to act. I like to get away, totally play a different character, someone you can get really involved in knowing. I've gotten really involved in some characters and written down little summaries of where they live and what their families are like.

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you're playing a scene, you're not making choices; you're just intuitive.

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.

When I was a kid, I used to make up all these characters. I love comedy a lot, and I don't get to do it often. Somewhere in the middle, I shifted into doing drama.

I'm not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.

The fun thing about doing origin stories is you are introducing the audience to characters.

And I have the support of the writers: I have a great relationship with the creative team, and they have a good hold of my character and my personality, and they come up with some great stuff, and I'm forever trying to change it up, keep it fresh.

It's all about story and character with me, and I don't care if the job is on daytime or prime time or the web. Hey, give me a good character and someone to listen, and I'll do my acting on a street corner.

I usually don't find myself reacting to my characters. I just create them ... And let the audience decide whether they're empathetic or scared or compelled to cheer me on.

I always say I write my own novels and the characters don't take control of me, but in fact, I look at the characters in the early stages and I think, 'What is he or she like,' and they slowly come together and they become the person they are.

In the work that I normally do, you have a whole script, a whole arc, that you play. And I do believe a good actor will play every bit of information they're given.

I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.

When you have a book as material as it is, it's a lot easier to create a character because you have so many resources to draw upon when acting.