Allison Janney Quotes

I want to create a TV show that people will watch and say, 'Hey, I have a favorite character,' or 'Hey, that person reminds me of myself,' or 'Hey, I've made some of those same mistakes, or those are some of the things I've dealt with.'

Whether it was 'Gangs Of Wasseypur' or whether it's 'LSTCK,' the characters are real, and when you see them on screen, you can identify with them.

I think that's a hallmark of a really good story that it has readers that it speaks to more than others.

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

The way I approach any role, whether it's comedy or drama, I like to look for the truth first. I think comedy for the sake of comedy wears dull pretty quickly. You have to ground the character in reality first and allow the audience to sympathize, emphasize and be more invested.

Ultimately, physical resemblance isn't as important as whether this person can bring this character to life in a way that's compelling and makes me care about what happens to them.

I'd say Rob Reiner's 'When Harry Met Sally' is my all-time favorite. It made me realize there's a way of telling a story where the audience is so in love with the characters that they forget you're even telling a story.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

I always felt the play came first. If it didn't touch me, I'd say forget the part.

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

I think people are getting into these 'Empire' songs because of the emotional investment they have in the characters. You kind of feel like you know the songs already because you just watched them play out in front of you with these characters.

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.

The jokes I was always attracted to, and that I would tell for the longest, were jokes where I cared about the subject. Whenever I wrote a joke where I didn't care, even if it was really funny, the third time I told it, it would lose steam.

When people watch my movies and web series, I want them to either see themselves in those characters or something they can relate to.

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

If you care about [the characters] as if they were real, that always helps.

When you're going to try and have people talk in a room and actually reflect life as we know it and have people recognize themselves and their own street and their own house in it, well then you're aiming for the high country and it's a much bigger gamble. You can interview all the marketing gurus and the people in charge of, you know, the people you gotta fight with in order to get your seats here, and they all talk about release dates and counterprogramming. At the end of the day, it's gotta be a good movie.

If the characters [in a movie] aren't real, if their lives aren't realistic, if you call bullshit at any point in their journey, then the rest of it is invalid.

I think what people watch television for is the emotional continuity, from episode to episode, and feeling that the experience that they had, four episodes ago, has actually been building to an episode that comes later, and knowing that the characters are growing, as a result of that, and making mistakes, is really, really important to the way people connect to television.

If you're trying to be realistic and bring real life to the screen, you are going to have different elements. That's what I'm trying to do. As I make the movie, different elements come in naturally.

With Erin [from Paper Girls], I wanted to show what she might look like when she's 40, and I wanted it to feel authentic. In terms of inspiration I ended up using my wife for a lot of it. Just to kind of to give me almost an anchor so that I would be invested in making this character real.

You must worry about the truth of your characters and that it fits your vision. The rest will come naturally if you've done your job properly. I love the horror genre but I want to transcend it too. Allow the hardcore audience to see possibilities beyond the easy scare, to embrace its multi-faceted richness.

Everything we do is about the emotion of the characters. We believe the better the emotion, the better the movie.

We in Illumination Entertainment tend not to put ideas through a brand funnel. We've collected a group of people who share a certain taste, and that is connected to our aspirations for our brand. We pride ourselves on making character-centric movies. If I had to say what's the most important thing this company does, it's creating characters that stay with the audience long after they leave the theater.

I like to play any character that allows me the freedom to explore it and teach the audience something they didn't know, and show them a journey they identify with... or be inspired, or moved. Anything that touches someone's heart is important for me.