Frank Oz Quotes

Well, one of the things we're supposed to be able to do as playwrights is write from a place of empathy, get into another character's shoes and experience things both mundane and tragic. And people don't - like me right now - people aren't necessarily the most eloquent when trying to express their emotions. I guess I feel as a playwright that those people deserve a voice, too, a voice that isn't so articulate that they themselves can no longer identify with it.

The writer's original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader's.

I find the voice is what I look for first and foremost with just about every character I play.

I loved Hank Kingsley. He was very real to me. There was just something about that character. I really believed him. I didn't think he was a buffoon. I understood the inner workings of him, so I sort of felt sorry for him, the poor guy. He was very important to me.

What happens is some of the characters I've played have voices that are so different from my own, that it would be ridiculous if I would dip in and out of that voice in between takes to ask for a coffee, or something. Or to gossip about whatever was going on.

I think I prefer singing in falsetto. I like the way it sounds. It doesn't sound like my natural voice. It sounds like a character.

I believe in characters as vehicles of exposition. Their voices are full of hidden clues, and I like to listen to them.

It's a little weird accepting your voice coming out of an animated character. You don't buy it at first because it's your voice and none of us like our voices when we hear them recorded back.

I'm a musician, and I'm fascinated with the effects of sound, and tone, and pitch and melody and all that sort of stuff. It's the first thing I have to solidify whenever...I get into a character. The first thing I need to get sorted out before I can then move forward, before I can feel any confidence whatsoever, is the voice.

A character has a distinctive voice - you should be able to hear them in your head and conduct a conversation with them while you're out walking. If the answers surprise you, you know it's the character speaking and not you.

I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

My only want and wish, really, was to tell a good story. I wanted to do good work, tell a good story, and give the character a voice. Those were my only expectations.

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.

When I write characters, I need to hear their voice. As soon as I get them speaking, and I feel how they use language, I understand who they are and what they want.

I had a very low voice for the character in the show. I said, "That's not actually my voice. That's the character's voice." I'm being such an actor.

If you watch a stretch of TV for a few hours, there is a good chance you'll hear me on some commercial or in some documentary or on a cartoon as some voice of a character.

To choose the ideal voice for a character is to give a character an ardent and vivid life, to allow him or her to speak, rather than speaking for them, in an older style of omniscient narration.

I try to treat every job with the exact same level of respect. When I go into it, it doesn't matter what the budget is or who the lead actor is. You should have the same focus and the same drive, and you should have as much empathy for your character and understanding of them as you would, no matter what.

You can never know enough about your characters

Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.

I think you always need to be able to relate to your characters, but that doesn't necessarily mean...you have to understand why they do what they do, but you don't actually have to be like that yourself.

It wasn't like this happy-go-lucky experience, shooting Norman movie. It was something I kind of had to, sort of dedicate a certain level of focus and energy to kind of just stay in this headspace that would allow me to access - because it's also a very emotional movie at times. This was the first time I ever played a real character, a fully fleshed out, dimensionalized, multi-faceted character, as opposed to a part. There's not very much opportunity for somebody of my age and my look, so for a character-driven piece like this to come along is a rare thing.

We as actors doubt up until the last minute that we can be this person. So everything matters, the more work you do, you get in touch with who the character is.

Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice.

I like things where I can do a physical transformation, and I love accents and voices, and I'm never going to play the same character twice.