Gabriel Byrne Quotes

I'm always looking for complicated characters in fiction about whom I can feel a dozen feelings at once - in the space of a single paragraph, even.

The larger-than-life thing is definitely what I'm after. I've always drawn dark stories. Occasionally, I'll try a perfect hero, but it's a real stretch for me. I like 'em warts and all, and obsessive and weird.

There's more depth to Lionel. What I am finding so interesting about playing him is there's all these different layers. I prefer playing Lionel because he's a human being.

The deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away. It's more challenging to me, but it's also just interesting. Those are the things I like to watch. I like to watch the evolutions of something.

I'm attracted to playing people who aren't necessarily straightforward.

I look for characters who are emotionally driven.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

I like complicated characters.

We can bring to characters dark and bright sides that nobody even dreams about.

I look at characters to see if they have some contrasts to play with; I think that's always what I'm looking for in characters: ones that have a wide range of expression.

More often than not, real life is so rich, complex and unpredictable that it would seem completely implausible in the pages of a novel.

It's all about exploring the more unpredictable aspects in the character, not just fighting people.

Everyone is complicated one way or another. But it's interesting to dig into a complicated character, to try to find that within yourself.

The complexity of the emotional life of the play is what you live to work on.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

I think any character has to be well-rounded, whether they are male or female - they have to be complex and make choices that maybe we don't agree with, you know? I guess that's what makes them human.

I was always trying, even in pure action movies, to find what was sensitive about the character more than the pure action.

It's interesting if you can talk about the large moments and also the small moments to understand the deepest complexities of a man by trying to imagine who they are.

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional.

An actor knows much more about a character than the character knows about himself.

Craig has explored the darker recesses of 007's psyche. He has shown us the lonely man. And he has shown him falling truly in love.

Kubrick has a divining rod for the concealed, alienating secrets of characters.

If you go into something saying, 'I'm the bad guy,' you do yourself a disservice as an actor. It's always about trying to find the humanity in a character.

I think the challenge for me in this role is going to be, is there any heart in Negan? For me, I look at that as a challenge as an actor, and that's the kind of thing that I embrace and really look forward to.

It's challenging, in a way, but if you depict anyone with all the colors of human emotion and show those moments - with their families, with their children - the worst of us have elements of real humanity.