Rob Sheffield Quotes

In the old days, I just could not leave characters alone. Now I just try to keep the ones that still have something in the way of stories to tell.

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.

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

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'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.

I tend to relate to a character in terms of the arc: what's interesting is where he starts versus where he ends up.

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

But he did say that the character would be on the sidelines in movies One and Two, and move into the middle with number Three, but I didn't realize he would move in with quite such a bang.

Every actor wants to have a character that changes, that has some kind of movement, that gets from point A to point B, that doesn't just supply one note.

I'm trying to make all the characters change and grow, or regress.

In TV, you may think your character's one thing for two episodes, and then the third episode it could be something different.

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.

Well, I don't think characters change. I think they become more revealed. I don't think you really can change a character on a show.

Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.

No, I won't ever write another 'Lily Bard.' I said everything I had to say about Lily.

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.

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.

For me, one thing I love is having an arc for a character.

I like a character that is still alive and is necessarily thinking, and either grows or diminishes or whatever.

I really enjoy the constant change in TV. It's fun to play a character that is, hopefully, growing and developing over a long period of time.

Alison Carr on 'Homeland.' She was such great character to play, so clever and full of surprises. I was sad to see her go.

I care more, and I think readers do also, for characters in a state of transformation.

The Duffers like that; they like watching their characters grow.

As you do on any cable series, if they introduce you as the villain, then you better start working towards making him a really good guy, or if they introduce you as a really good guy, then you better start working towards being the villain. Your character has to go somewhere, or else they become very uninteresting.