Dolph Lundgren Quotes

I always try doing a different character for every film so it's not just changing one.

Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character.

What I do is to collaborate with each actor and work one-on-one to create a character. And that is a matter of huge complexity and is a combination of a great deal of discussion and a lot of practical work. It involves a lot of consideration for the real people out there, and all kinds of sources of real people. The result is the character. But I'm not supposed to talk about what it is we do, because it's nobody's business.

I think in every character there are aspects of yourself that you bring to it. But then it would be really boring to just play yourself.

You can't follow another actor's performance. You can't be Robert DeNiro, because you're not Robert DeNiro, and, you know, he is.

I would love nothing more to participate in a real struggle to find a character, and really delve into and develop a character. That's why I'm an actor.

Each character represents a different color on the big palette of what this ultimate painting is going to look like, who your guy is, and just try to be as honest and simple and real as you can possibly be. The outer trappings are incidental - costumes, period, makeup - all of that is rather insignificant at the end of the day.

The first thing, the main thing, about how I work is I need to understand the character.

I never base a character on someone I know. You can get ideas from real life, but every character you write is some aspect of yourself.

When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world. When I'm not at my desk, the rest of the time, I try to stay in that character and see the world the way that character would It's almost like method acting in a way — keeping the character close the way the actor keeps a script close and always tries to be in character.

When I'm putting the character together I try to find music that I think fits the character.

What I really learned from Tim Burton is that it's important to have your own person in a role because you can't play a character unless there are elements of human behaviour that you yourself understand. I was really struck by how Tim Burton would like to sit and chat about you... or question things which then you had never thought about. It is a good thing to always step back a bit with things like that. But I try my damned hardest to learn something from everything I do.

If I can look at each character that I am given and create them in a different way from the last role, I'm happy.

One of my jobs as an actor, regardless of who I play - even if I'm playing a despicable character - is to make people think that that character could exist, that he's real, and the way to do that is to make him believable. He doesn't have to be likable or charming, but he just has to be believable. That is someone who I could see on a bus. That is someone who I could walk past in the street.

When I go into making a movie, personally, I don't try to bring other pieces of movies with me. I think that finding a character, relating to her and making her as real as possible means forgetting all of that stuff and just trying to find the truth, in that particular character's words.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.

Working on camera is a different ballgame in the sense that it's far more intimate work, but the basics and the foundations of being able to create something that isn't necessarily your own instincts - is a character that you have inside your head - whether you're talking about television or film or theater, that still has to be the grounding work.

I feel like with every character, you try to put yourself in that person's position and just completely use your imagination. That's what I do, at least. Everything is just pretend.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

I just think, in every acting choice that you make, you've got to go for the least obvious choice.

It's pretty rare that something I've written is close to something that's pre-existed.

There is a very thin line dividing characterisation from impersonation. I've to make sure I don't cross over into mimicry.

I just try to put myself in the sense of being a character, sometimes male. I suppose I just like the idea of trying to be different people coming from all kinds of different angles. Most of it was just from my imagination.

If you're playing someone who's impeded by fear, or shyness, or has whatever dysfunction your character might have, you have to achieve the dysfunction first, imaginatively, in order to play someone who is trying to negotiate their way out of it.

You definitely do not do films for that particular reason. You do them for yourself, for your satisfaction of creating this thing with characters and watching these characters take on real life - that's all you care about.