J. K. Simmons Quotes

What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray.

I think conflicted characters are always more interesting.

I think as long as I can tell you a story about people that you understand, it doesn't matter if you don't like what they do; you understand why they did it.

I never play a villain that I don't have something I can either do or say so the audience sees there is something redeemable about them. In other words, I don't want to do evil for evil's sake. I don't want to do Jason slasher movies. There's no point in that.

You can't think that you're playing a villain, or you'll end up with a cartoon. You have to think about him as a person and a hero.

I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.

The thing about the classics it that they are such great characters, they have a great deal of depth and different layers to them. I always find that very stimulating to play.

I like stories where there's a center that's mushy and complicated.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

If you have to be the antagonist, you often have a lot more creative powers. You have a lot more color to you.

I don't like the word 'strong,' because a strong character is never an interesting character. A character is made interesting by their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.

Even if I'm playing a bad guy, I work hard to make him multi-leveled and interesting.

The bottom line always remains the same: What is the basic humanity of the character? How do I make them resonate with the reader?

When I look at a character, whether he's good or bad, one scene or 10 scenes, I just have to find my way in.

I do think you need to understand a character's motivation and perspective.

Having been raised by actors who love moral ambiguity and flawed protagonists, I feel like it's sort of in the blood to want to take it on.

I like playing complex, interesting characters. Sometimes I don't think there's much of a strong line between right and wrong for a character. Every character is somewhere on a moral spectrum.

As an actor, my job is not to always play characters who make everybody happy. That's not interesting.

However, for my characters to have depth, they have to be human and complex, have both qualities and flaws, do the right things at times, and at others, things they'll regret having done and not necessarily know how to undo.

My hope is that each of the villains I write will have his or her own motivation that readers can understand, whether they agree or disagree.

Somebody - and I'm going to guess it was Hitchcock - once said that everyone has their reasons. If you remember that, as a writer, you'll write better than average villains.

I get the feeling that audiences have become mature and they understand that not every character is in black or white. There can be grey shades to it.

As a writer, I have to show complexities. Through my writings, I hope to bring out people in different situations and not just one-dimensional beings.

Whenever I have tried to make a character bad, they end up being good in some way.

I feel my job as an actor is to explore all sides of humanity.