Doug Stanton Quotes

The best fiction is geared towards conflict. We learn most about our characters through tension, when they are put up against insurmountable obstacles. This is true in real life.

Real life is messy, and drama is a shaped version of real life.

I think the movie, 'Joy,' has so many touchpoints with so many people because it is about the ordinary, but a lot of the times, the ordinary is extraordinary.

People at a point of conflict are always the most interesting stories to tell.

In a traditional TV show or movie, your hero is always where the action is. But in real life, at the end of the movie 'Fargo,' when Bill Macy is arrested, Marge is nowhere to be found because it's a different jurisdiction, and she wouldn't be there. I took that to heart.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story.

I'm not interested in the heroes or the villains. I'm interested in playing people.

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

I think a lot of people relate to some of my characters' inner struggles.

I think that internal conflict works very well, because, after all, all the best drama is fuelled by conflict.

With any good story, you need the adversary, the heroes and villains. You need a good mixture to make it work.

When I go to the movies, I want to see a human being dealing with their lives. That's all I ask.

You can't write my types of books without hurting someone.

I want to keep telling stories of ordinary people.

It's a lot harder to write a story that's compelling about identity and sense of self without some villain in the room.

We want to see a struggle. We want to see people falling over but getting themselves back up on their feet, and that's what's extraordinary- ordinary people and their struggle. There's nothing as interesting as real life out your window. You walk down the street for half an hour, I'll give you half an hour of drama.

To me, when you have people trying to put their best foot forward but facing conflict, that's when stories are the most interesting.

There was no difference between my characters and the life my readers were going to have to face.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

The roles I'm interested in or have been interested in, you know, it's going to get down to conflict. Drama is conflict - conflict of interests.

I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy.

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.

Our job is to represent the truth of human nature, whether you're playing a tender love story that's set in a coffee shop or whether you're in 'The Avengers,' which is set in a Manhattan which is exploding.

Character development is conflict.