Cecelia Ahern Quotes

You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.

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.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

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.

My job playing Sam Malone was to let the audience in, to love my bar full of people. And that informed my life.

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

For us, creativity means thinking about the lives of our audience and how to connect with them.

As an actor, you really want to resonate with your audience.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

Audiences need to engage with characters.

The true meaning of an artist/actor is opening my heart to the audience and, at the same time, opening their heart.

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.

I think it's touching that the fans feel so close to the characters that they feel personally hurt. I've felt that way in plenty of TV shows - 'Game of Thrones,' 'Mad Men.' How could they do that to that character? That's drama.

The greatest story commandment is: Make me care.

In a film, if you can capture what's going on underneath, you can begin to make a connection between the character and the people watching it.

The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.

For me, the key is always trying to find the connection between the audience and the character I'm playing. That's important to me, in any work I do.

Letting journalism be from the perspective of the journalist. It's usually a no-no, and journalists are encouraged to be completely objective.

Stories are the shortcut to the heart.

Miss the audience's heart as a filmmaker, and the only wallet that gets hit will be your own. That's because the heart is always the first target in story telling.

I could get an audience into my world and if you can do that, they'll go with you not all the way, but a lot of the way.

When you're being real, that's endearing to an audience. When you're not being real and you're making jumps to things that don't really follow how they would in reality, people don't appreciate that.

I don't try to intellectualize characters too much. But I always think of the audience. I always make sure that my characters are likeable.

I have to feel the audience. I enjoy that feeling of community.