Mads Mikkelsen Quotes

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

Sometimes you have a period piece where you have to research around it but, if the writers have done their homework well enough, the information is all in the script.

I don't have a stack of scripts.

I learned how to write television scripts the same way I have learned to do almost everything else in my entire life, which is by reading.

When I read both pilots for 'Breaking Bad' and the 'Michael J. Fox Show,' I turned to my husband in real life, and I'm like, 'That is an amazing script.'

My stories are pretty simplistic, but the characters are always complex and always right, and that comes from the script and my research and reverse-engineering what I find in the real world.

By the time I wrote 'Any Given Sunday' or 'Bats,' I sort of knew what my job was in terms of what a writer of dialogue does.

If you have a great script and great dialogue, you don't need to improvise.

I feel I do not have script sense. Like Kartik Aaryan has a very good script sense.

I'm really calculating when it comes to these scripts - I'm really calculated about character behavior and dialogue.

To be honest, I have never thought about the intricacies of a script.

I have only recently got interested in film, and it is a strange way of working in many ways. But actually, when it is at its best, it's quite an extraordinary way of working between a director and an actor, to really explore an inner life.

You know, the great thing about acting or, indeed, filmmaking in general, is that we're all given a reason to do research. You kind of have to, really, if you want to know what you're doing, but it opens up this whole new understanding.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'

The pleasure from acting comes from having great writing to work with. If it's well written and the character is interesting, then, as an actor, that's the raw material I need.

I think that it's fun to get the script and open it like a Christmas present. That's 'Alcatraz' or anything that I'm working on. If the groundwork has been laid too much, the surprises aren't there.

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe it's because I talk too much!

Sometimes you do feel a script that glows in your hand the moment you start reading it. By page four of Shakespeare in Love, I said, 'I have to be in this movie.'

I'm not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.

One of the greatest things about 'Continuum' is how great the writing is; our writing room is one of the most talented ones I've ever had. It really helps me as far as character development because they paint a very descriptive picture of who the characters are while still letting us have freedom to put in our own ideas.

With every episodic, there's a learning curve where writers try to find the voice of the characters by way of the actors. Many details are found along the way. On 'Caprica,' although the franchise already existed, we were creating an entirely new world full of new characters.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

The first time I played a killer, in the 1997 film 'Mojo,' I went to my local video shop and got out a video of real executions and a history of the Third Reich. The guy in the shop was giving me a look. I thought this would help, but I don't think it made any difference, and I don't want to see any more executions.

I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems?

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue.