Barry Hannah Quotes

I'm all for whatever it takes to get wherever you need to get with a character, as long as you don't wipe it on me.

I very much write from characters. Those people start speaking, and then I have them in the house with me and I live with them. Then at some point, it's time to get them out of the house. You can only live with someone like Dr. Georgeous Teitelbaum from THE SISTERS ROSENSWEIG for so long, and then it's time for her to go. But it is very like having the company of these people and trying to craft them in some way into a story.

When we approached the project, the very first thing we did was take each character and say, "Okay, where would this character be?" We didn't want them to be caricatures of themselves. We wanted them to live and breathe, and grow with the audience and with us.

Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.

There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

I've always loved shows that combine both approaches - that have a mythology and a set of characters, whose stories develop and change, and where the relationships evolve and fracture.

An actual saga demands change, both in its characters and its world.

When you're playing a real person, there's a balance between playing the person in the script and playing the person as he was in life. You have to be respectful and true to who that person was, but at the same time tell the story in the film.

Sometimes I know what my characters are moving away from or toward; more often I just wait and see. For instance, though I knew Sinkler in 'The Trusty' was going for water, I did not know that he would meet a fetching young farm wife until I got him into her front yard.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

That's part of the beauty of being an actress: you get to explore different facets of what it is to be a human being and what it is to explore different personalities, and actually, that's one of the things I love about it.

I've always wanted to do a feature film, because, as a model, you have to play so many different characters.

I keep writing stories that I might want to bring to life one day.

Because it's me playing the character, trying to find a way to make it believable and entertaining and interesting.

Before I begin a novel I have a strong sense of at least one central character and how the story begins, and a more vague sense of where things may wind up, but at some point, if the novel is any good at all, the story and characters take on lives of their own and take over the book, and the writer has to be open to that.

I'm pulling out different aspects of my personality in writing each character and, if I'm doing my job well, I'm being true to the situation and true to the character.

I'll never approach a part in the same way again. Piaf taught me so much. In terms of my work, I think I'll enjoy it even more than before, because now I know that characters truly exist in their own right. I'll have a way to bring them even more intensely to life.

The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film.

Every paragraph should accomplish two goals: advance the story, and develop your characters as complex human beings.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

I really become the characters when I'm writing them. I'll become one or two of them more than others, I'm consistent that way.

I like to do movies, because I love becoming different characters, and telling different stories through different eyes, and affecting someone's life in one way or another.

You can always find ways to make it different, as long as it's a really well-written script and well-written character.

It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character. Then again, there is a huge gap between me as a person and what I do in the novel.