Claire Danes Quotes

Television is about identifying with the characters.

Whatever kind of movie it is, you're going to be more into it when you care more about the drama, or you'll have a better laugh if you feel like you know the people better.

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.

The first thing, when I read the script, is that I need to care about what happens and feel compelled by the story and engaged by the characters. It needs to resonate with me, even if what the characters are going through is not something that I have experienced in my life. I have to feel like it has some sort of meaning to me.

That's why I love doing television because it's something that fans and viewers can sit down each week and get to know your character and get to know the show and get to know what's going on and fall in love with you all over again, like they did in previous shows.

I'm always sorry to finish a book, to let go of characters I love, people I've struggled to understand for years, people who evolve before me.

I think it is important that you care about the characters, and you are not just waiting for the next action sequence but have a vested interested in what happens to them.

As a viewer, I care about people, I care about characters, I care about perspective.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

As an actor, that's the best thing you can do, really take people along on a story and tell them something.

In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.

I believe people leave a theater bonding with characters. Story is the vessel that carries character. Comedy is a very important component of expressing character.

The film depends on the audience's belief in this relationship.

If you care about the characters, then whatever scary thing happens to them, you feel it even more.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me, if that makes any sense.

If I can get the audience to connect with the characters emotionally - and they love who they are, they love the larger-than-life situation that they're in, but most of all get the audience invested in the characters - then I always feel like I can sort of put them in the most outrageous circumstances, and the audience is okay to go with that.

You can film the most exciting car chase and the most exciting stunts, but if you don't care about the person inside the car, and you don't care about their predicament, you're not really going to care about the action, either.

Audiences need to engage with characters.

You have to have somebody to root for. I truly believe that's how you ground a movie. You ground them in the characters.

You have to think about storytelling over the long haul: what is going to engage an audience for, potentially, years and how characters can become deeply involving for an audience.

People love storylines. They love them because at some point, the talent will get people emotionally invested.

A good movie makes the audience feel like they've journeyed with the characters.

It's always useful to know that people are emotionally invested in a series because it means that you can take them down a certain road, and they should be interested.

What makes an audience watch something and care about the characters is the emotional life of the characters.

Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.