Nathan Fillion Quotes

I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.

The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.

I love flawed characters, male or female, and I only want to talk about flawed characters, really, in what I do.

You don't want to play a perfect person; no one cares about that.

It wasn't my choice to be an open book, but when people found out what my life was like when I was 14 or 15, I didn't deny it. I think the more imperfect you are, the more human you are.

We never made attempts to say we were anybody's role model or the be-all-end-all of what people should look up to. We have always just been very open about the fact that we have difficulties and we are messed-up people, just as our fans are.

All my characters are quite relatable, as they are flawed, true, and honest. All of us are flawed; nobody is pure and pious.

As always, with acting, you can't be too self-conscious. You shouldn't care about what people are thinking about you at the time because they're not caring about you, they're caring about the character.

Everybody has parts of themselves that they're not 100% happy with - that's what makes you human. And being an actor, your job is to play human beings. Your job is to play real people.

To recognize yourself in a character onscreen, and to connect with them, you gotta recognize their flaws; they gotta feel like a real person.

The thing I always tell my audiences all the time is that I'm just two steps ahead of you on a good day. And I might be two steps behind you on a bad day.

I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.

Whatever my situation is, I want to show that I'm not perfect, and perfect isn't real. The youth need to know that, especially.

The actor already comes with emotions to the scene: fear, the fear of being in front of the camera. It is this fear that spurs the emotion of the scene. I too am afraid; I don't know exactly what I am searching for. On the set, we are all participating in this fear together.

There's such an emphasis on having a character be likable. I don't think it would be helpful if I worried about that. I mean, not everyone's likable.

Perfect heroes are cool, but no one can really empathize or identify with them.

I try to write about real women, real people - in other words flawed characters.

It's hard to talk about yourself onstage and be sincere about it.

People use the Method as a shield; it shields them from being vulnerable. I hear all these young actors who are like, 'I'm Method, I'm gonna go live in the house, you know, I totally get it, I've done it, I've been there', but one thing I know is it kills spontaneity.

I'm all about showing people that I'm a little messed up, I have a lot of the same problems you have. By exposing myself and putting myself out there, people can relate to me and my act won't grow stale. I mean, nobody wants to hear a comedian say, 'Life is great.'

I love the powerful woman who's complicated. There's no push to be one thing or another thing. It's all human. That's what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible.

If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don't think I'd want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.

Everyone is usually screwed up in some way and that is usually where the work comes in - figuring out how to make it believable and make it real to present someone's problems that you don't necessarily actually know anything about.

You have to be funny about it and honest about it. You can't leave yourself out of that mix. You have to be honest enough to say, I'm that messed-up one in the family.