Brian Grazer Quotes

To me, you couldn't write a character like J. Edgar Hoover and have it be believable. I mean, he was a crock pot of eccentricities. We couldn't even fit all his eccentricities into [ the same named] movie.

If you're a history buff, you know about J. Edgar Hoover. He was likely the most powerful man in the US. If you start reading about him, the books contradict each other constantly. I was often left with very little sense of the man personally. I had a sense of what he did and didn't do and what people disagreed about whether he did this or didn't do this or that, but I was like, "Why? Why was he doing all of this?" That was my big question.

I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ]

It's an incredible education [for the movie J. Edgar Hoover] . It was like I did a college course on J. Edgar Hoover but not knowing and understanding the history and reading the books, but understanding what motivated this man was the most fascinating part of the research.

I love female-driven drama, and those kinds of characters. I really love complex women.

Whoever would understand the character of Washington, in all its compass and grandeur, must learn it from his own writings, and from a complete history of his country during the long period in which he was the most prominent actor.

[ J. Edgar]Hoover, I'm sure, felt that he was right in everything he did and even the things that we don't like about his character.

If you read any of the biographies on J. Edgar Hoover, you find that they contradict each other more than they agree. Often times, they're often told from a political perspective.

The politics of crime is not about a party's record or a candidate's proposals, but about perceived character and values.

In general, I am more interested in the darker characters when I watch or read stories.

I'm an actress, so I hope I'm good at it.

What I love about 'The Good Wife' is that it's not straightforward.

'Game of Thrones,' people say that it's a fantasy series, but it's a hell of a lot more than that. It attracts the so-called geeks and nerds, and God bless them, they're wonderful for getting right into the show. But primarily it's about family; it's power and betrayal and jealousy. It's all those wonderful things that a fantastic drama is about.

In writing a novel about George Sand, I hoped to present her as the talented, beguiling, complicated and occasionally infuriating woman I think she was, but I hope, too, that readers will enjoy the people she surrounded herself with.

I just love characters that are complex, that you can dig into and keep itching the scratch and never quite be satisfied because they have enough going on with them that it's like a giant puzzle.

I am a fan of dark movies and dark complex characters, and I love to take on a character like that.

My debut film, 'Madras Cafe,' is a political thriller in which John Abraham plays an army officer. My character's name is Ruby Singh, and I play John's wife, with all the strappings of an army man's wife.

I really enjoy 'Mad Men,' but I'm hugely into 'Homeland.' The characters are very well drawn and complex.

I think all interesting characters have some kind of a complex.

In the U.S., Superman or Batman or something, the law-enforcement people, are the most famous comic characters. Americans have a respect, I think, for badges and a respect for uniforms. I think that's, in some ways, quite a nice thing, but it can be dangerous, too, because it can obviously be abused.

I talk about Breaking Bad being the most brilliant show ever, and even minor characters have subtle nuances and are fully drawn.

The deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away. It's more challenging to me, but it's also just interesting. Those are the things I like to watch. I like to watch the evolutions of something.

Actors are always looking for ways to build a character.

Really a bad guy is more interesting, dramatically, than the good guy.

That was one of the reasons why I wanted to tell the story of Colin Price. I saw someone in this fictionalized political character that was trying to do something important for his city. He meant well, but then you see that the human flaws had really derailed his past. It seems to be happening more and more in our country. I wanted to hold a mirror up to that.