Retta Quotes

One of the greatest things about 'Continuum' is how great the writing is; our writing room is one of the most talented ones I've ever had. It really helps me as far as character development because they paint a very descriptive picture of who the characters are while still letting us have freedom to put in our own ideas.

When you're creating a character out of nothing, you have to make all the guesses as to how they walk, how they talk, how they think. It was all there on the table for us to pick and choose for Murrow.

When you're crafting a character, it's good to have a lot of influences.

I love creating new characters that are whatever they are.

It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.

A novel is utterly your own creation, a very private process. I think of a novel as a noun and a screenplay as a verb. In a novel, very little needs to happen; you can explore a person's memories and thoughts and fantasies. In a screenplay, it's all action; you must push the story on.

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers.

I just love to be able to actually build a character.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

That's the way it happens - some characters you set out to use, some are happy accidents. As long as it works, it doesn't really matter how you got them.

I like to make definite choices and give my characters as many unique edges as possible.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

I find it very hard to sit down and create an idea or especially a new character on command. Usually my characters evolve by accident out of some story context.

Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.

I don't base any character on a real person, and really don't do composites either. I make them up.

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.

As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.

Interestingly that some of the characters did not turn out the way Jim and Allen had envisioned them.

There are always certain things that you tap into, your own personal experiences, and I try to base my characters on someone I know or someone I've seen.

I try to distinguish my characters from each other.

Usually when you're doing concepts for a character, you just try a couple different things to see what sticks.

I don't tend to cast roles in my head because I spend so much time with these characters and the drawings that they're complete in themselves, you know what I mean?

I really enjoy working in genre series, because you really have to create the characters.

No I don't really write thinking about specific actors because it can get in the way a little bit.

A lot of times characters are combinations of people I come across in life. I people-watch a lot.