Abhimanyu Singh Quotes

I tend to play characters that I can infuse with certain kinds of humour. Even the baddest guy can be funny in his own particular way. I want the audience to engage with the character on some deeper level so that they leave the cinema still thinking about him.

I like it when the deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away.

And I think that when I play these villains, maybe what is different is that the audience sees me play these and they know that that's Chris and he's having fun and he knows that and he knows that and you know that and everybody knows that.

No actor can play a villain if they don't sympathise with him or her - otherwise the character just becomes a two-dimensional caricature.

When I saw 'Talk to Her' for the first time, I was crying out loud because I couldn't imagine that I was doing that film.

Your structure and format may not be perfect, and you may not have picked the perfect franchise, but if I pick up a script, and the characters are real, whole, complicated and come from a place of somebody who really is feeling it, that's what people remember.

The interesting thing about my character Sylar is that my strengths as an actor seemed to go completely against the shape of a character in the shadow.

If a film isn't really talking about who we are and what our psychologies are, then we're probably not that interested in it, actually.

When I look at a character, whether he's good or bad, one scene or 10 scenes, I just have to find my way in.

The real trick to these movies and making the big action sequences work - and I've forgotten this sometimes and screwed it up - the characters really have to be humanized. Because you can have the greatest special effects in the world, but if you don't care about the people in those effects, there's no impact.

You can't play a guy who's just a snake, because what do you draw on?

I don't know whether it's audiences or filmmakers who want characters to be likable today, but I don't think actors are afraid of their characters being unlikable.

When it's a bigger character, and there's a lot going on for her, and there are all these different elements that go into the character, I just love being able to dive into it.

I don't exactly relate to grey characters.

Every character, if fleshed out properly, is being taken seriously.

I want to play a psycho, something more challenging than just 'the girlfriend' part.

I think all interesting characters have some kind of a complex.

Villains with a conscience have this sad realization of who they are, and the monster they've become — there's a sense of regret. So at the end of these movies there's a dramatic resonance that really stays with the audience.

Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention.

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. Flat characters ... in their purest form ... are constructed round a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor to them, we get the beginning of the curve toward the round. The really flat character can be experessed in one sentence such as, "I will never desert Mr Micawber." There is Mrs Micawber - she says she won't desert Mr Micawber; she doesn't, and there she is.

Clever's not enough to hold me - I want characters who are more than devices to be moved about for Effect.

If a character dies, you should feel that. If a character accomplishes something, you should feel that. That's where you try to find that balance. It's impossible to articulate, as you go through it. You just have to recognize it.

The most interesting characters are those you're drawn to, then repelled by, and then come to understand. All that tension - I live that. But I don't plan the tension. It's just something that should happen.

I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character.

Novels can fill in the spaces about what that emotional resonance is.