Gurinder Chadha Quotes

If I like the story and it's well written, and it's a character I want to play and they'll pay me, then I decide to do it.

I have no idea and I think Steven King strongest suit is the characters that he does create, all in the same area where he lives. The way he describes them is one of his fortes and it boggles my mind how he's able to do that and to create so many. It must be thousands by now.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

Even one word, or certainly one sentence, should be able to describe the basic characteristic that the scene has, or the character has, or the story has. And then you begin to detail that one spine, and you have offshoots from that spine, and it becomes more and more complex, but all of it stems from that one-word, one-line theme, which can give the character, the scene, or the play its uniqueness.

Novels have become equally important to me as films. I consider myself a storyteller and passionately engaged in both of those disciplines.

Il ne faut point donner d'esprit a' ses personnages; mais savoir les placer dans des circonstances qui leur en donnent. You should not give wit to your characters, but know instead how to put them in situations which will make them witty.

Writing stories, adopting other characters, making up fantastic stories and tales, this is a way of perhaps enhancing who I am. Writing stories takes a commonplace old life and makes it all somehow more interesting. And hopefully I can do that in a way that touches a lot of people in their lives, too.

I find the characters in my head and the more I write about them, the better I get to know them.

Writing, even though it's hard work, is really a joy when you get these characters to come alive. It's hard to trace where they come from. I can't say that I am sitting here one night at nine o'clock and that a character occurs to me. The magic for me happens at the typewriter.

I'm such a huge fan of television and what's happening in television, right now. You are able to visit characters and visit a story, week to week, push things in a different way than you can in a film, and you are able to go deeper, simply because you have more time. I'm just excited to do that. It's always good to do new things.

Novel writing, to me, is all about language: choosing your words, finding the characters within the words and just really agonizing over every word. It's really crafting this whole piece from nothing.

As you become acquainted with a character you are creating, you add parts of yourself that are pertinent to that character.

For big Hollywood movies, I'm on the more character-driven side of the equation. So, TV is a natural place for me to be because you've got no choice, but to be character-driven.

Whether I'm in front of the camera, behind the camera, at my computer writing a novel or a screenplay, as long as I get to entertain someone out there, I'm happy.

We live in a sea of general ideas, so that's not a novel, since there are so many general ideas. But the moment a particular idea is linked to a character, it's like an engine moves it. Then you have a novel underway.

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views.

Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are good things too.

In essence I'm really a very traditional writer. I subscribe to the notion that, ultimately, characters do drive everything else.

I wasn't that much of a Disney buff growing up, but I love the mystical and magical nature of Peter Pan, and I have connected with that character through Owen [Suskind] in making this film ["Life, Animated"].

Of all the disciplines involved in making anything - TV, film or anything I do - the writing is the most valuable commodity.

They always say, doing what I do for a living, write what you know and then people will respond to it. I luckily had a very charming, lovable mom who I think everybody could see bits and pieces of their mom in. All I had to do was write a character that was like my mom, and it made my life easier.

The poets needed to learn to pay greater attention to character and to narrative.

What interests me when I'm writing is being able to crawl into a character's head and speak from his or her mouth. It's not pulling the strings on a marionette, it's not playing ventriloquist, and it's not mimicry. It's about inhabiting a character, and, at the same time, being totally unaware of what you've become.

For me, as an actor, the most challenging thing is creating the character in the beginning because you have to write their backstory. The easy part about doing a sequel is that you've done the film, so you already know their backstory.

You can never know enough about your characters