Jamie Dornan Quotes

Things can change on a daily basis in television. You can be introduced to aspects of your character that you had no idea existed because they didn't exist a week before. The next week it might be taken away from you in some way that you can't control.

It's good fun to create an unpredictable character. When he comes into the room, I don't know what he's going to do - I have to find my way.

I always have a rough outline, but I'm shocked at how little I actually follow it. Those characters keep doing things that I never expected. I think if I crept up to my keyboard and peeked, they'd be talking about things behind my back. Okay, that's a little paranoid and delusional... but just a little.

Working with Danny Thomas was truly an adventure every week. Danny didn't always say the words as they appeared in the script. I learned more by osmosis than by sitting down together. He was a force to be reckoned with: an explorer of television.

All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.

I tend not to have any references to anything. I just jump into the script in front of me. If you reference too much, you have no idea if the performances are right.

I like to play unpredictable characters, and I like to be unpredictable in what movie I'll do.

The thing about Brando was that I'd make these directions, and he'd walk away. He'd heard enough... to get the machine going.

In real life, you don't know what's going to happen to you, so why would your character know? It's liberating to play the emotion your character is feeling at the time and not know what's coming up. I like it.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I'm attracted to roles that are unpredictable, and if I can get my hands on something like that, I'm thrilled. I like performances where you don't know what's coming, moment to moment.

I find out more about Jack every week. Essentially, I'm the same character, but I'm having more fun this season because I'm doing more aliases, you know. I like the surprise of not knowing.

On 'Think Like a Man,' they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

Thankfully, I have a background as an actor, and you learn how to live in that world of not knowing what's going to happen next.

Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

I just like surprising people. I never want to get to a place where people see that I am in a movie and they go see the movie and they expect a certain performance one way or the other. That is just inherently boring to me.

I've always admired Jeff Bridges. I really like how one can never get a handle on what he's doing.

I play characters. I don't think I really have a persona per se. I don't play the same guy every time. I show up, you don't know what I'm gonna do. I like it that way. I've intentionally tried to do it that way. I think that's what's interesting.

Sometimes the character will go into a completely different direction than I expected once the cameras start rolling. That's what I love about what I do.

There's something really exciting about playing someone where you're given license to be unpredictable.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

The longer I've been doing this, the more I've realized that you have no idea what kinds of roles are possible for you - dream roles can take you by surprise. That being said, I need to play Hamlet one day. I'd also love to be in a play that I have written myself.

I like - there's a better word for it, but I like the danger that a comic brings to a role. It has a feeling, even though everything's scripted and everything's planned what you're going to do. When I see Will Ferrell or Sacha Baron Cohen, there's a feeling that anything could happen.

The great fun of doing new plays is that people have no idea what's going to happen next. That goes quite soon, as people start talking about it, and the only way you can keep hold of that is genuinely to keep changing it.

Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.