James McAvoy Quotes

What's fun about doing a series is you get to take some time to create the character.

With any project, but especially in television, I always try to look at where the character is starting from and where he's going to end up, and try to find the biggest arc that makes it the most exciting to play.

I think what good television does well is that it shows characters evolving.

My character on 'The Good Wife' is a smaller character, and his story arcs are typically season-long, unless it's a big episode for him. His transitions take place over many, many hours.

There is always that thought that you might get stuck with a character. But there's always the notion that every character is always evolving.

I'd never really been in a series, where you see a man at different points and perspectives in his life. Usually it's a film, where I'm playing a character who just comes in and offers something up.

On 'Swingtown,' I think that's when I was able to blend the character-slash-leading lady roles, and that's what I'm doing on 'Once Upon a Time' as well. She's a leading lady, but she's also this character.

In the work that I normally do, you have a whole script, a whole arc, that you play. And I do believe a good actor will play every bit of information they're given.

I think everybody goes through changes, and the same should be said for fictional characters, especially ones that you follow on television.

After a while, the character sort of took over.

I love to see how a character unfolds off the page in a project. I don't always know how the character is going to turn out, even with the script being there. It's not always clear where that character is going to take me. Or where I will take them.

My life needed to be saved. Not just Foxy. That's my character. That's my work. Inga is a person.

What I discovered is I don't like to repeat lead characters because one of the most pleasurable things in a book to me is learning about the lead.

In the process of developing a character, you do, in fact, start to take him on as a personality.

For me to have the opportunity to stay with one character for, God willing, a long period of time, is really exciting.

I look for roles where there is some kind of an arc to the story.

I remember always feeling lucky with Zoey on 'Nurse Jackie' that... she was new at the very beginning. So that gave her everywhere to go.

The Duffers like that; they like watching their characters grow.

When you get a character that you're just starting to work on, it's the most exciting and most terrifying feeling because you have endless hours of diving in, researching, reading, and decision-making.

Whenever you have a role where you don't get to know anything about the character, you have to invent it yourself. You have to feel like it came from somewhere.

For me, it's all about smaller character-driven pieces, about finding a person that I connect with and that I'm interested in bringing to life.

In film, because you know where the ending is, characters can change, but in television, you substitute revelation for change, and that can be hard to pull off.

I love the long-form format of television. I love being able to develop a character, over a long period of time.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

In terms of the character itself, I can't really say that I find anything really difficult. I enjoy the character so much I don't perceive difficulty in trying to be him. It's just a matter of how do we get there.