Fortunately, our audiences are used to a kind of boredom in the theatre, and if the writer is skillful, he will flatter them into thinking: 'Why, that's us up there, and aren't we - for all our little foibles - pretty nice guys and gals?'
My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character.
I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.
When I'm on camera, I have to do things pretty much the way I do things in everyday life. It gives the audience someone real to identify with.
We can't help identifying with the protagonist. It's coded in our movie-going DNA.
Whether it's a very dramatic part or a comical role, I feel I need to create the same thing: a full-fledged, three-dimensional character that the audience can identify with.
In my opinion, understanding who your target audience is, and what they want, and writing to them (and only them!) is the most important component of being successful as an author.
Before any movie of yours gets made, it will be vetted by the studio's marketing department. So, you do have to answer the question: Who is your movie for?
I remember Julianne Moore talking about acting and she said, "I'm just looking for truth. When people watch, they're not looking to see me. They're looking to see themselves." That's one of my new favorite sayings
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.
By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.
I think a mistake a lot of people make is to identify a target audience and then work backwards into creating a product for them.
When an actor gets a role, especially in series television where he really is the part, the audience never thinks of another actor playing that role. If they accept you in the role, then they can't separate the actor from the character.
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.
I'm not really a blockbuster, I'm not a member of that audience really.
The only line that's wrong in Shakespeare is 'holding a mirror up to nature.' You hold a magnifying glass up to nature. As an actor you just enlarge it enough so that your audience can identify with the situation. If it were a mirror, we would have no art.
Perhaps 'Borderlands' can be a lesson for all of us - that when making a videogame, we should not be afraid to identify gamers as the audience.
Who would you talk to? That is the first question for almost any startup that you need to answer. Who is my user and where am I going to find them?
I think 'Scarface' is a great film, but if you have a character like Tony Montana, you don't identify with him at all. I think it's very interesting instead to identify yourself with a character you don't like all the time. You can create a tension between the fiction and the viewer. You force the spectator to wonder about his actions.
Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the svelte.
When 'Jewel' was screened, old friends from school and university got back in touch. More than one of them told me that their partners hated Merrick so much they could not think of having me in the house. This kind of audience identification does not happen in any other medium.
Running for office, or suggesting you might, is no longer about being a politician but being an independent opinion or sensibility entrepreneur. You're looking for an audience to identify with you. Rather than trying to convince a majority of the electorate, you're looking to cull your particular following.
I think there was the studio mentality for a long time that women and girls can relate to a male hero, but boys and men can't relate to a female hero.
Mythologicals and historicals have always found takers in India. The audience identifies with them and they make for good family viewing.
The second-class couple is far closer to what the audience is today. It's who we are.
