Rhys Darby Quotes

I think that's the fundamental thing - you can go anywhere you like as long as you're following a character that the audience likes and understands.

I've just looked for ideas and great characters that I relate to and that I think I can offer something to the audience, and I no longer look at them as experiments or genre exercises at all.

I don't try to intellectualize characters too much. But I always think of the audience. I always make sure that my characters are likeable.

You can't tell an audience to like a character. And I think the best way to get the audience on someone's side is to embarrass them.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

At the end of the day, if you don't identify with the main characters, no television show will work.

I've done a number of films. I've been around this. I think the biggest challenge is just getting the script right, the way that you want the script to be. It's really about capturing the complexity of emotions and creating the kind of characters that people will want to watch every week.

Ultimately, if the character is interesting and you said that before: It doesn't matter if it's likable. That's really what it is. If they interest you. If the context in which the characters are set interests you then I think then you're pulled in by it.

Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different... Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.

To my way of thinking, whether it's a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you've got to care about the characters. You've got to understand the characters and you've got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you're half-way home.

People really do identify with the characters they see on the show, but these days, social media allows you to interact with fans in a really interesting way. On my Twitter account, I'm Chris Carmack, not Will Lexington. I interact with fans and joke with them. I'll post pictures from my life. I think that helps drop the curtain of a character.

Until a character becomes a personality it cannot be believed. Without personality, the character may do funny or interesting things, but unless people are able to identify themselves with the character, its actions will seem unreal. And without personality, a story cannot ring true to the audience.

I think that most of us [writers] would rather have an audience than countless riches. If we wanted to be rich, we'd be doing smething else.

I always want the audience to identify with my character in some way. I mean, sometimes you'll get characters that aren't very identifiable. Sometimes you can't relate to your character at all.

We see films all the time, whether they have access to all kinds of intellectual property or artifacts, and the one thing that they don't get is story. So I think whether you're talking about a biopic or an action film or a science-fiction film that has all the CGI in the world, if you're not trying to connect with an audience, it doesn't really matter.

I think the podcast is a way to keep working out, essentially. You can keep being creative on your own schedule, without having to book a gig. It's been a great way to connect to people, especially realizing there is an audience listening. They generally gravitate to my sensibility. I love it.

I always try to bring a little bit of my own personality to the character, or some sort of personal connection makes it a little bit more of an organic portrayal and the audience can kind of maybe believe it a little bit more. But I always look for something to kind of connect with and identify with, or bring something of myself to the table.

I have always liked kind of outsider characters. In the movies I grew up liking, you had more complicated characters. I don't mean that in a way that makes us better or anything. I just seem to like characters who don't really fit into. You always hear that from the studio: "You have to be able to root for them, they have to be likeable, and the audience has to be able to see themselves in the characters." I feel that's not necessarily true. As long as the character has some type of goal or outlook on the world, or perspective, you can follow that story.

I don't have to change anything. I think that's the secret to comedy. You want to be universal and appeal to everyone.

There's something therapeutic about connecting with an audience - when there's something really sort of odd or silly that you think is funny, and conveying it to an audience.

With a novel, you have the reader with you a lot longer, and you owe him a lot more. Obviously you have to have a plot - I say "obviously," although I think a lot of fiction doesn't, and nothing seems to happen. But to me, there should be something that happens, and it should be at least vaguely plausible. And because the readers are going to be with these characters for a long time, you have to get to know them and like them and want to know what happens to them.

I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment. Sometimes you can get too into your head when you're in a scene.

With every character you play you're always trying to put facets of yourself into those characters. I think Asher, at the beginning of The Giver, when he's goofy and a little bit of a rule-breaker, a little bit of a jokester, I align with him. But then he kind of transforms throughout the movie and becomes someone I don't necessarily relate to. I relate to Adam McCormick's sensitivity. He's more quiet and introverted, and I definitely have those moments as well.

Trying to find a human side to the character is a way to give them a chance to have people like them.

The balance of the frame - the way an actor is relating to the space in the frame - is the most important factor in helping the audience feel what the character is thinking.