Paul Greengrass Quotes

The script is a blueprint for the film - there are very few bad scripts that make good movies. If you really like the character and understand the utility it serves within the movie, that's a part of my process.

It always comes down to script and characters.

You don't idea your way into a plot but plot your way into an idea.

Plot comes first. The plot is the archictecture of your novel. You wouldn't build a house without a plan. If I wrote without a plot, it would just be a pile of bricks. Characters are your servants. They must serve your plot.

The characters are the plot. What they do and say and the things that happen to them are, in a sense, what the plot is. You can't take character and plot apart from each other, really.

I always begin with a character or characters, and then try to think up as much action for them as possible.

Definitely the script because you want to be part of an interesting story, you want your character to be a challenge, then comes the director. But essentially it's the script first and whether it's a character that you think you can do.

All you need to know about plotting is twofold. 1. Give your characters goals. 2. Don't let them reach those goals.

It's certainly easy for me to make a fictional character mad about something. I can get them angry about something that I'm relatively indifferent about, just because I'm not educated on it, if I go to someone who is educated about it and is passionate about it. I find a point of fiction and then give it to them.

I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.

First lead [in a movie] requires a different approach like trying not to give it all away in the first scene. It is a skill, a learned skill.

In essence I'm really a very traditional writer. I subscribe to the notion that, ultimately, characters do drive everything else.

I really don't like to go for the stereotypes. I try to give you characters that you don't know until you get to know them, and [decide] how you should feel about them.

I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.

When you have a clear idea of what your character is trying to accomplish, it makes it a lot easier to riff on things.

As an actor, I usually try and keep my motivation within the context of what the character is going through.

The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking one's readers seriously -don't condescend or try to be tricky. Be a friend to your reader - I'd say that's a pretty good first step.

Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are good things too.

Actors want to work. Give them characters they want to play, or a story they want to tell, and hopefully the budget will follow.

There are lots of things that you can go down the list and say, "Oh, these are cliches, we've seen this before, just hits every checkpoint." All of that takes a secondary status for me if I'm reading something and I just really like the characters.

I just look for characters that have dimensions. If I don't see it written on the page, then I try to put it in there somehow. You don't want to play the same role twice.

I did feel Dr. Cox, the character that I was auditioning for, was too similar to the head of the hospital. He was too arrogant and mean. I approached him kind of like I had a miniature Max sitting on my shoulder. I pictured Max saying, "This guy has got to give love every once in a while. He has to!" I knew there had to be tiny little windows of redemption.

In most good stories, it is the character's personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen.

I am not one of those actors who dwells on the histrionics and the subtext and future text of the character. I deal with the scenes that I'm doing at that specific time, because if I do that, they play in more of a real way.

I like characters where there's something going on and something to make him real. If you find out what somebody cares about, all of a sudden, the whole world opens up.