Kim Jee-woon Quotes

To read a character I'm not sympathizing with is generally quite a good, attractive proposition because I've got somewhere to go, I've got work to do, to try to understand why they behave like they behave, to relate entirely and understand them and to be completely emotionally connected. That is much more fun 99 percent of the time.

What it made me realize was that a show like this makes people look inside themselves. Because this crew guy isn't sitting there wishing the character would fight back. He's hoping that he would fight back.

I identify in some measure with each of my characters.

Good characters don't believe they're bad. As long as you as an actor believe in them and try to understand them, it's not hard to have empathy and sympathy.

I'm a sucker for a screwed-up protagonist. We all have issues.

I've always been interested in films where you can identify with the actors. Where you can be in their shoes and therefore be more involved if they're people that you recognize.

We all have to go through our own spiritual process. It is very difficult. Some people are struggling and they are in their teens. Some people are in their 50s and they're struggling. Some people go through life and die not being able to accept themselves. Tragic. But it's very individual. And it's about self-esteem.

Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. Even the real monsters have to have a spark of something you can relate to.

You have to find ways to relate to the characters you get to play. Put it in terms and in a context that speaks to you.

I'm a sinner just like everybody else and I have my faults and I've been through my dark times in my life to where I wasn't walking the walk and talking the talk, or I may have been talking the talk, but I wasn't walking the walk.

Well, I don't feel that I've played so many bad guys, and I'm rot really drawn to villains per se. I think a lot of people relate to some of my characters' inner struggles.

If you can't laugh at your own characters, or shed a tear for them, or even get angry at one of them, no one else will either.

I have a lot of sympathy for young people because I realize how disturbed I was. How would I deal with life in the future? What would I do for a living?

When a script moves me, I find that I immediately understand a character. Of course not completely, but I do understand.

Over time, it's occurred to me that my protagonists all originate in some aspect of myself that I find myself questioning or feeling uncomfortable about.

You can't be a human and a guy and not connect with Pippin... I often feel like Pippin. I come offstage sometimes like 'Oh my God, I've got to do this next time! I've gotta go there. I'm going to make this choice.'

I think all of us have a hero and a villain in us.

I have struggled with identity all my life. It's not like something that just happened last week.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

I'm inspired by the poets, so I'm always going to give in that direction, rather than in any other. It's the making of me... and also the downfall of me.

You know, the character of Isabelle in 'Love Crime' is the only character I feel the furthest from. I have nothing to share with her, so it was really difficult. Being an actor of composition is something, but you always base yourself on something you know about.

I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

I'm hopefully making the reader feel a lot about the characters and then about their own life.

Your plays are always personal. You can't help seeing yourself in the serial killer you've just written. But they get less specifically personal.

I am simply trying to struggle through life; trying to do God's bidding.