Character Background Quotes

As actors, you don't actually need to know the future of the character. You just need to know the backgrounds.

You're living with these characters for years and years, you need to have a lock on who they are as people, what they like, what they don't like, what they experience, and what they go through.

Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.

There is nothing like being able to develop a three-dimensional character over a long period of time. Sometimes you aren't able to fully portray a character because you only have a couple of scenes to do it in, and you don't get the full life and background of that character.

I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.

I had auditioned for 'The Vampire Diaries' years ago before 'The Originals' happened, so I was familiar with that mythology.

Detailing and backstories are so important; only they draw you into the life of a character.

Most of the names in my books have secondary meaning. Sometimes they foreshadow; sometimes they tell you about the character's origin or back story.

It's one of the things that attracted me to the role [Doctor Strange] is the fact that it's a really widely origin story, I mean this is part of it, but of course there's the whole chapter before where he's the neurosurgeon who has the accident. It's fantastic.

Most of my characters aren't hillbillies anyway. Let's just call them proletariat with a disposition towards criminal activity.

My character [in This Is Us], Randall, was adopted. He'd never met either of his biological parents so he seeks out and finds his biological father after 36 years. So that's where we find my character at the beginning of the show.

I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.

I wouldn't call myself a method actor, but I have my own method. I do my own research. I come up with a background for the character. I'm not a club man. I don't like isms. I've never really studied Stanislavski.

Even Superman's name reflects his creators' biblical knowledge.

True, I don't begin with an idea for a play - a thesis, in other words, to construct the play around. But I know a good deal about the nature of the characters. I know a great deal about their environment. And I more or less know what is going to happen in the play.

Here's the thing with the costumes for 'Mommy': Given the background and social strata that the characters come from, you can't really imagine that they've gone shopping lately, so we went for that very normcore, fashionless era in history, the early 2000s, which was completely transitional.

I start out giving characters archetypes and parameters. Once I know the basics and have a rudimentary model, it's easier to carve unique curves and edges. It's quite easy to guess how a character is going to react if you know their background, and at a certain point, you realize you understand them personally.

This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.

I confess I didn't read the 'Green Arrow' comics before coming to play Shado. The comic books are not as easily accessible in Hong Kong as they are in the States. I do enjoy superhero fiction, though.

Places are extremely important when writing a long story because place shapes a character.

Creatively, I just like interesting characters. So straight, gay, or whatever - like, whatever, wherever the characters are coming from or their lifestyle.

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.

I've hardly ever played urban characters.

Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story.

I build my characters from the day they're born to the first page of the script.