Jehane Noujaim Quotes

I like to play characters that are convincing, that aren't just straightforward and nice.

I totally respond to complex characters, and I'm not interested in anything too simple.

I always tell my students to complicate your characters: never make it easy for the reader. Nobody is ever one thing. That's what makes characters compelling.

I'm always looking for complicated characters in fiction about whom I can feel a dozen feelings at once - in the space of a single paragraph, even.

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.

I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.

I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated.

I like shows that are ensemble-based, that explore the humanity of every character.

I think any character has to be well-rounded, whether they are male or female - they have to be complex and make choices that maybe we don't agree with, you know? I guess that's what makes them human.

You know, we have to take these characters - who, granted, have their separate personalities but, on a lot of levels, are pretty two-dimensional - and make them into people with flaws, with insecurities.

I'm not interested in a character's goodness. I'm interested in what makes them human.

He's a man who... well, one of the great things about Shakespeare is that his characters are inconsistent, and that's something I think makes him a writer above most writers because inconsistency is what we, as people, are full of. We maybe don't see it in ourselves too often, but we are inconsistent.

The beauty of Sudhir's protagonists is that they are not shown as black and white. There are various layers to the characters.

I like fractured characters with human follies.

I like those really multidimensional characters like Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt.

I like characters that are complex. I don't like people who are simple to play and are either black or white.

I am not interested in one-sided characters.

. . . I felt that making her one-dimensional would be an insult to the audience, and also not as interesting. All destructive people have an inner side to them, and the more three-dimentional your characters are on screen the more compassion you can open up in an audience . . .. To me, that involves the audience more, it stimulates them and asks more of them.

I like playing human beings - I don't believe in good or bad. I don't believe in black and white. I believe in different tonalities. I believe in different layers of emotions and states of mind. I believe in characters that can be human.

Bruce McGill and Sasha Alexander are regulars on the show. That shows that it's not just a typical procedural show. We have these actors because they can come in and actually act, and show the different colors of actual people. No person is just one color. No person is just who they are at their job, 24/7. That was really what I was excited about.

Every character, when it comes to a cinematic representation, gets complicated and layered. You are given a lot of dimensions than a single dimension to an individual. That's the main difference between seeing something out of the window and seeing something on screen.

I want to give my characters nuance.

I choose grey characters, as I enjoy playing a human character. I don't shy away from showing the shortcomings of my characters.

Grey characters don't only mean broody characters. A totally smitten lover boy can be equally grey if written that way.

I don't like characters who are either good or bad. I just don't experience that in life, so my writing hasn't evolved that way.