Edward Albee Quotes

I don't write [screenplay character] biographies beforehand. I usually go in knowing some sequences: this is where I want to start, this is where I want to end.

You have to think about good storytelling and characters first. Then hopefully, the rest of that stuff will follow, some more than others. But if you don't have a good film and strong characters, then you don't have anything down the road.

The critiques I received from my father's community didn't actually have to do with any of the things I'd been afraid of - spiritual or cultural aspects - they were more annoyed that I'd killed off this character or those characters hadn't hooked up or I'd done an open ending and it didn't give them a sense of closure that they were expecting.

I love sentences. I love characters. But most of all, perhaps, I love to work on plot, and that may be where my natural gifts lie, if I have any. I like to think hard about plots in TV shows and films.

I suspect that the theme, the nature of the characters, and the method of getting from the beginning of the play to the end is already established in the unconscious.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

Even one word, or certainly one sentence, should be able to describe the basic characteristic that the scene has, or the character has, or the story has. And then you begin to detail that one spine, and you have offshoots from that spine, and it becomes more and more complex, but all of it stems from that one-word, one-line theme, which can give the character, the scene, or the play its uniqueness.

Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are good things too.

You have the hilarity and the great production. These films are distinctive because they are not just topical, they tell good stories and they let scenes play out physically. Apart from the dialogue, the characters also have a non-verbal existence, for example with Scrat.

You do understand that you can't force the situation, but in terms of how you edit, you can define that to take the audience along, whether it be a storyline or a character moment that we can play out. The more experience you've had, the more beneficial it is, period.

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.

Actors want to work. Give them characters they want to play, or a story they want to tell, and hopefully the budget will follow.

For me, it's always filmmaker and then character and then story. They're all equally important but if you don't have a great filmmaker, you will not have a great film unless you just get lucky.

I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way.

If you create a character, you create a destiny.

I just look for characters that have dimensions. If I don't see it written on the page, then I try to put it in there somehow. You don't want to play the same role twice.

Clearly, you can think back and see that a character has had enormous odds stacked against him and has to overcome them. It's usually a guy, I'm afraid. But then you're setting up a new movie you have amnesia about these meetings, when you've discussed it more analytically.

Writing is hard work, and if anything's true about the process, it's that fact that a good story is hard to find and even trickier to get on paper. What's less romantic than staring alone at a blank screen? And edgy? I've changed the cat little because I didn't know what my characters were going to say next.

For me as an actor, it's absolutely so thrilling to hear anybody talk about the character that I play.

For me, as an actor, the most challenging thing is creating the character in the beginning because you have to write their backstory. The easy part about doing a sequel is that you've done the film, so you already know their backstory.

One particular night I was at the theater. I was not scouting for a project, but I was touched by this play by Évelyne de la Chenelière. I was touched by the character. I thought it was a rich character that could be rich enough for a movie.

In most good stories, it is the character's personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen.

When you know psychologically what [characters] are feeling, then that plays out on how you dress a lot of times.

I am not one of those actors who dwells on the histrionics and the subtext and future text of the character. I deal with the scenes that I'm doing at that specific time, because if I do that, they play in more of a real way.

If there's ever a character who can only serve one metaphor, I'll probably tell one story with that character and be done with it.