Dan Scanlon Quotes

I think the danger in trying to set too many things up or do too much world-building in a movie so soon is you forget to actually make a movie.

I usually don't find myself reacting to my characters. I just create them ... And let the audience decide whether they're empathetic or scared or compelled to cheer me on.

You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.

I love making characters real and believable, through my own experience and choices.

If I don't fall in love with my characters, I cannot shoot.

I love to evoke the bones and meat and thoughts of characters.

It can be a fictional character and yet relatable... It always depends on the content of the film and what you are doing.

I love all the characters I write.

I may have a story idea but everything starts moving when I am able to see my characters clearly. They then organically lead or respond to the story or the universe I want to create.

As a writer, every time I create a character, I try to go for something to captivate the audience in some way. It's also an extension of how the audience would like to see themselves.

You have to be involved and relate to the characters in order to make a film that is true emotionally.

I always try to make my characters people, and yet I always want to entertain.

One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

With every episodic, there's a learning curve where writers try to find the voice of the characters by way of the actors. Many details are found along the way. On 'Caprica,' although the franchise already existed, we were creating an entirely new world full of new characters.

I love doing theater so much - being in front of an audience and seeing how a character grows and develops with every performance.

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

I like movies about people and movies with characters; that's what I'm drawn to as a person who likes to create these characters within the story, but I like it all, really.

Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.

I suppose it's possible that a writer would have feeling for his characters, but I can't see how, because writing is such a meticulous, intricate, technical business. I wish I could say that I love my characters and that frequently they take over the book and run away with the plot and so on. But they don't exist.

It always helps me connect with characters, to think about what music they respond to.

I love that there's a beginning, middle and end to a film and you can craft what the whole journey is going to look like.

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

We start with strong characters and build the movie from there. That not to say we don't struggle with story - that's the most challenging part.

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