Neil Marshall Quotes

Every issue, the characters and I duke it out. They usually win.

When I was on Saturday Night Live, I was furious at some of the choices that were being made. None of us are all happy about every choice that's being made, but that's another part about being there for a while. You start seeing why they do it, and you've just got to try to get your punches in while you can.

I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.

You really try to work the character out and spend time in the headspace of the character. That's what I did.

I think that comes with a collaboration with the writers. I think that we get cast in edgier roles because we are a little more offbeat, so people - as we get to know the writers, and as the writers get to know us, they start to write around us more, and that's why I think the pilot is not always the best way to get to experience a new television show, because we're fitting ourselves into these characters. Whereas as the show evolves, they're writing the characters for us and for our strengths and weaknesses.

When I'm putting the character together I try to find music that I think fits the character.

When you're trying to do character work that's different from what people expect from you, you're sort of in territory that is uncharted, and you don't know how it's playing all the time.

The characters I have the least in common with are the ones I have the greatest success with. The further a role is from my own experience, the more I try to deepen it.

What I really learned from Tim Burton is that it's important to have your own person in a role because you can't play a character unless there are elements of human behaviour that you yourself understand. I was really struck by how Tim Burton would like to sit and chat about you... or question things which then you had never thought about. It is a good thing to always step back a bit with things like that. But I try my damned hardest to learn something from everything I do.

Any jokes I make I try to make sure it's on story and helps the characters and makes sense with the movie.

You're trying to bring a character to an audience, and tell stories. That's what we're all trying do.

There were a lot of lessons of production to be learned. On the page, the biggest thing you learn on any TV show is how to write to your cast. You write the show at the beginning with certain voices in your head and you have a way that you think the characters will be, and then you have an actor go out there, and you start watching dailies and episodes. Then, you start realizing what they can do and what they can't do, what they're good at and what they're not so good at, how they say things and what fits in their mouth, and you start tailoring the voice of the show to your cast.

With The Help, I knew folks involved in the project peripherally. I wanted to audition for Hilly Holbrook and part of the initial feedback was: "No, Bryce is too nice." That's part of the reason why I really love auditions as well - you get to try out a character and try out different versions of a character.

We worked with Jean-Marc [Vallée] [on Big Little Lies] in terms of finding [style]. Because when you have five women, you're trying to find how they each dress and how they present themselves to the world.

I sort of have the belief that you work being your character out while you're working on it, or that's been my experience so far. I throw myself into it 100% and try to live in that world, and then when it's over, just sort of be able to leave it behind.

What I try to do in writing any character is to put myself in his position.

The toughest part of acting is never a single thing. It's more like a whole character. I find film really difficult - trying to make it feel like a consistent character when you're filming everything out of order.

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.

I went through about 40 different hats until we found one that fit. It had to fit me and fit the character, more importantly, and whatever that thing was that we were trying to create with him.

, I have a friend living as a woman. But she's almost too "normal," to be quite frank. I'm not relying on her, because "The Jerry Springer Show" has such huge characters. I'm trying to come up with a little more dysfunction than that.

Cry Baby is just a character in this world that I'm trying to create, and the music videos are really important to me, and I've fought to obviously get all of them approved.

Compromise does not mean cowardice.

The way television works is that directors come in and out, and they're not there all the time, following every character through every scene. They're vagabonds who go from one show to another.

It's important to fight for your character but at the same time realize there's a bigger picture involved and, you know, this is a character that's shared by everybody. It's not just purely your own.

I really want to try to explore the characters from angles you've never seen and keep them classic and iconic.