Noah Hawley Quotes

Part of the success of the show is that the audience sees themselves in the characters, becomes the characters. The more they inhabit the characters, the more they see.

One of the benefits to television is that you're with these characters for years, you know them so well.

Television lets audiences deeply connect with characters.

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.

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 don't like the idea the viewer can kind of sit there and go, 'Make me like this person.' People aren't inherently sympathetic.

I'd read one too many crime novels where the victim was just a name: body number one, dead woman number 12. I understood fear, and I wanted to create characters who made readers say, 'Please, don't hurt this guy.' That's the key to suspense. It's easy to disgust a reader. It's much harder to make them care.

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.

The way I approach any role, whether it's comedy or drama, I like to look for the truth first. I think comedy for the sake of comedy wears dull pretty quickly. You have to ground the character in reality first and allow the audience to sympathize, emphasize and be more invested.

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.

Ultimately, physical resemblance isn't as important as whether this person can bring this character to life in a way that's compelling and makes me care about what happens to them.

What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.

What really motivates you to try to work things out as an actor is in large part fear, because you want to get into that narrative and bring the audience along.

In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.

I immerse myself right into my character whether or not I'm relating to people live as an actor on stage or whatever.

The film depends on the audience's belief in this relationship.

I like finishing a movie and having this living, breathing thing.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

We are Disney, in a sense. When you've been there for 20 years, there's a certain heart and soul to one of those films, and you inhabit that to a certain degree. So if it feels true to you, then your audience will hopefully go for it.

I do think that people get really emotionally involved in the TV shows that they love and I think that is fantastic. Of course they are going to have opinions. The other thing is that people project onto their television shows. They see a character and layer on many traits that are actually their own or their idea of what that character is.

I have to believe in the character to perform it.

I always felt the play came first. If it didn't touch me, I'd say forget the part.

I can play a man who's despicable. But I'll still look inside him to find a point of connection. If I can find that kernel, audiences will relate to me.

Whatever kind of movie it is, you're going to be more into it when you care more about the drama, or you'll have a better laugh if you feel like you know the people better.

If you care about the characters, then whatever scary thing happens to them, you feel it even more.