Peter Graves Quotes

Gestating characters feels something like the mental equivalent of gestating a baby. In both cases, to create them you lose yourself. Or at least you reshape yourself to encompass them.

No matter how brilliant an actor is, there's always a point where they let you down, but that's all part of their journey. They might be trying something they need to explore.

The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece.

Every role that you accept makes you grow in some way. It's part of the creative process.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

I think about that 'empty' space a lot. That emptiness is what allows for something to actually evolve in a natural way. I've had to learn that over the years - because one of the traps of being an artist is to always want to be creating, always wanting to produce.

Nothing prepares you for making art except making art. You have to do it to get better.

I used to watch dailies and felt I had to keep on top of the character, but I don't feel that any more.

When I did the pilot, Mort was very real to me. When I got through with the ten weeks, Maura is even more real to me.

We truly experienced a lot as artists.

As a director you want to have actors, not only surpassing themselves, but also going somewhere, going different places.

Any journey of a creative person has, you know, really unusual challenges and years where you don't work and years where you work.

The stuff that I learned on 'Sons,' the education of how to tell stories, was part of that mythology. It's hard to look at it and go, 'Oh, if I knew this, I would have done it this way,' because the fact is I like to think that all that sort of unraveled as it was supposed to.

Sometimes it takes me six months before I find out what a line means, even if the writing is superficial... To do a play right, really, I'd like to take two years of rehearsal. You study the character by living with him.

Usually, I end up looking for something completely different to who I last played. But there is just a spark that's lit when I read a script or character I want to play.

You hope to be a part of something that makes you a better artist when you leave.

As I've grown as a creator, I feel that I want to tread in deeper waters and have a lot more going on emotionally with the characters. That's my appreciation for comics as a creator and a consumer as well. I'm more into stories that don't just bounce off the surface but go a little bit deeper.

It's just so fun to share that experience with your best friend when you're finding your voice as an artist.

I feel lucky that I always have a number of films to choose from. I would like to come out of my comfort zone while doing various roles, and I don't want to keep repeating my characters.

You have to write and develop and wait for the world to catch up to your art.

As an artist, you keep learning. You draw out different parts of you.

Inviting artists to do something, you want it to be a place where they're going to feel challenged and excited and that will maybe open up some new doorway in their own lives or their own creative practice.

It's funny, because you want to make it different, but when I start building a character I do the same thing with each of them, which is start with a blank canvas. It's like painting a picture.

A lot of people didn't like the 'Fantastic Four' for the first year and a half. It took a certain measure of time for me to find my feet in terms of what I wanted to do with the concept.

I'm about creating a body of work and moving on to the next thing.