Bill Skarsgard Quotes

I think you're bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It's not something you often do in comedy.

I'm not a method actor, but I'm affected by the life I share my life with during shooting. It's always a very strange and special period for me.

I think it's always difficult no matter how similar your characters are to yourself to get into that mindset, because however much they are similar to you, they're not you.

I think it's my job to like any character I play - to understand and appreciate a character, to look at the world as much as possible from their point of view. I don't look at it just technically: learn the lines, figure out what gestures I want to bring and play, and that's it. I like to learn as much as I can about the person, and see what happens.

I think that there's something really special about doing a series. You get inside the skin of that character 'cause it's such a long time.

I don't think I've ever done a character like this before, so I couldn't really draw from previous roles. I've been known for doing a lot of comedies in England, so I don't think that would have worked. I completely went from scratch, with this one, and used the research and what was in the script, and spoke to Chris. It's all from in my mind ,rather than drawing from previous experiences or roles.

Of course, when you work on a character, you try to understand her. You feel that everything she does has a reason.

As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.

I certainly don' think I could've played the character [Idi Amin] the same way without being in Uganda. I loved working in Uganda.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles. I spend like 90 percent of my waking moments walking around thinking: "What does this character do? What is his relationship with so-and-so?" Always, really. Too much!

I think that there is no doubt that every experience you have in your life, whether it's playing a character or something else, you bring that to the work.

I wouldn't think of my characters' moralities at all. And I think I identify fully with every main character I've written about and would say that I am them pretty much. So in terms of that I don't think I'm similar to Bret Easton Ellis .

If you understand your character and feel like it's a collaborative process, you're more inclined to dive into the deep end and fight for your character and feel passionate about your character, and that passion comes across on screen.

I think, in the initial process of discovering a character and the analytical process - and this is what I did take from Buddhism - initially I think there has to be an analytical, intellectual approach. And that has to be abandoned by the time you're playing the game.

I actually think it's helped me as a writer to have to act. It's only when you actually start putting yourself out that you appreciate the anxiety that comes with having to try to sell a line, or with trying to own a character.

Writers get to know me very well. It always serves me in the end because I feel I have a deeper understanding of the character and sometimes they really like my ideas and they use them.

I think you always need to be able to relate to your characters, but that doesn't necessarily mean...you have to understand why they do what they do, but you don't actually have to be like that yourself.

When you're training as an actor, a lot of the big work you're learning is to treat fictional characters like real people. You don't have the problem of discovering a backstory with real people, but there's always a mystery which is common to both fictional and factual characters. They are never quite the person you think they are.

A play is a parenthesis that contains all the material you think has to be contained for the action of the play. Where do you end that? Where the characters seem to come to a pause... where they seem to want to stop - rather like, I would think, the construction of a piece of music.

All my roles are character roles. On the other hand, there are those people who have an inner...I think we all do the same thing. You can't get by on aura alone. That I know. Everyone has to dig in. Everyone has to do the same set of, "What is this about? What is this character doing?" Everybody from Spencer Tracy to Brad Pitt to Jeffrey Tambor.

I love to work this way - I love the time of preparation. If you feed yourself with all the information and you get to understand who the character is then you can really be her.

I love music. I think music is a big inspiration; I listen to it a lot when I'm writing. I really love cinematic music. A lot of the time, I make playlists for my characters when I act. I also make playlists for the scripts that I write.

I think you always take away a little bit of a character with you, and it kinda like hangs on you for a bit, and then as time kind of goes and wears off a little bit.

That's a long way of saying no, I'm always too bound up in thinking about the characters in whatever I'm working on and trying to make good to dwell on characters from previous books.

I just rely on the text to speak for itself and then speak it as I believe it to interpret it, and then just know that the rules of the world that we're creating allow for things to come to life, and then just trust in the process of making a film. Hopefully we'll make a sequel, because if we do, we had such a great time as an ensemble, I think the best thing to do would be to just take the whole cast back. This is Iain's idea and I agree with it. Just reincarnate all the characters and put them back into the world. There's no rules. Why couldn't we do that?