Ivan Reitman Quotes

I don't like the idea the viewer can kind of sit there and go, 'Make me like this person.' People aren't inherently sympathetic.

When a family film is done well, there's a character that every member of the audience can relate to. I want to be one of those guys.

Whether it was 'Gangs Of Wasseypur' or whether it's 'LSTCK,' the characters are real, and when you see them on screen, you can identify with them.

It's always exciting to create a character that people can relate to, where people are like, 'Oh, I know this dude,' but maybe you've never actually seen this type of character on TV.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

In terms of the characters I think are really fun to play, a lot of times it's someone in my head saying 'I know that woman.'

If you can't laugh at your own characters, or shed a tear for them, or even get angry at one of them, no one else will either.

For me, 'Mommy' was about developing very humane characters that would be very credible and endearing and work onscreen.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

In my acting, I have tried to do this - to present to audiences a living creature in whom they can recognise themselves or someone they know.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

I don't understand that, because I think that what people like most about the show is that they recognize themselves in the characters and their problems, so the more believable the family is, the more we can draw the audience in.

I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

If you depict one home and the drama moving around one family, people love it because the characters become identifiable.

You have to present characters an audience can relate to.

For me as an audience member, it makes the characters more relatable and interesting if they're evolving and changing - it makes them feel more real in a way. But not every cartoon is trying to be real.

When the characters are believable and endearing, action scenes, for example, make an impact. Otherwise, the audience gets no kick out of action. The biggest strength of 'MCA' is that its characters are real.

If people don't connect to Eric Carter's struggles, I'm sure they'll find a character in this series to connect to. That's ultimately what it's about for me.

If the human story in 'STM' is relatable, it will work.

All my characters have been relatable.

If you care about [the characters] as if they were real, that always helps.

I believe in characters that can be tangible, and that you can actually relate to.