Christopher Nolan Quotes

When a script moves me, I find that I immediately understand a character. Of course not completely, but I do understand.

It kind of varies. I don’t have a method yet. It depends on the script and the character I think I need. I’ve worked with acting coaches, researched roles, and channeled different parts of myself. It’s on a case-by-case for me, right now.

The way I prepare is through script analysts and back story. I create back story for a character based on script analysts, filling in as many details as possible. I also do a lot of research.

As an actor, I've learned to become a detective. You have to figure out who that person is. If the character is a thief, you have to figure out what makes them a thief. Whatever the prevailing idiosyncrasy is, I have to find it in the script.

I think as actors we need to close read scripts and we need to fully understand the intricacies of dialogue as well as the symbolisms of what the actor wears and what they hold in their hand because that only adds more layers to the character.

I usually read a script from an audience perspective first, and then look more closely at the character only.

The interesting thing about a lot of serialized television is that it's a blessing and curse. Smart writers really take their time in investing in backstories and characters. As a viewer, you have to invest in them and love them before you can chip away at what's going on more on a deeper level with secondary characters.

I'm interested in what actors reveal about themselves through the structure of the character.

Really it's all about what's inside the Superman suit. How you feel about yourself when you put that on because it's very revealing and very imposing if worn with confidence, I suppose. The first time I wore it, I didn't have that as much. I hadn't really trained any, yet. I hadn't read the script, I hadn't really worked on the character at that point. And I was standing around with a room full of costume designers and everybody was judging me right away and going, "Don't make your judgment on it, if this is Superman quite yet or not," because I hadn't done all the work that I would later do.

Because I write the screenplay entirely and precisely, there is the danger that an actor might feel that this finite role is being imposed on them. I want the actors to feel that this is their own role, and that they can go back to point zero and develop this character.

It was our goal to dig into the characters and really try to find out why they think the things they think and why they do the things they do - and we got some amazingly candid and revealing interviews - but it's not my job to offer summary judgment on those interpretations.

Usually when you're playing a character, you think a lot about their backstory.

It was seriously just a name. They didn’t tell you what to do. They didn’t tell you how they wanted the character to be - nothing. You went in to audition for this character name and that was it. When I started, before I came onto the set, I went to Gene Roddenberry and said: hey, what do you want from this guy? Who is he? And being as smart as he is, he said: don’t listen to what you’ve heard or read or seen in the past, nothing. Just make the character your own. And that’s what I did.

Any good movie or script usually, if they're doing their job, gives the highest platform possible for an actor to leap off of, and that script was very high up there. It was a very smart, tight script. There was a lot of improv, as well, once we got to the set, but a lot of the original script was also in there.

I don't really pity any of my characters. I hold my characters under a harsh fluorescent lamp and ask "Who are you?" I'm not doing their makeup or giving them hairdos. They present themselves to me as they are and then I let them say what they want. Usually they're saying something too honest.

If there is a connection between Harry Potter and my new novel, it's my interest in characters.

It's a mistake and misconception to think that one has to state everything clearly and simply for the audience to be able to follow the character, and this is what is bringing American cinema down from its position in the classic golden period. There's this misapprehension that the audience is not smart.

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views.

Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors.

Honestly, Think Like a Man was the first romantic comedy that I liked. I'd kind of avoided them for awhile because I never felt that any of them were really smart enough. But when I read this script, I genuinely fell in love with the characters, especially my own. So, I just wanted to be a part of it.

But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.

All my roles are character roles. On the other hand, there are those people who have an inner...I think we all do the same thing. You can't get by on aura alone. That I know. Everyone has to dig in. Everyone has to do the same set of, "What is this about? What is this character doing?" Everybody from Spencer Tracy to Brad Pitt to Jeffrey Tambor.

I love to work this way - I love the time of preparation. If you feed yourself with all the information and you get to understand who the character is then you can really be her.

I spend a long time casting, but once I've cast a film there's a reason why I selected those people. So I'm hands-on in selecting the cast, hands-off to see what they do with their characters, and hands-on again to offer suggestions.

I think if you play characters, it's very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.