Character History Quotes

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.

There's nothing more liberating about starting with something that is not written. You pretty much create the history of that character and that character's life story.

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 think it's very hard to talk about these characters in a closed-ended, sort of non-sequel way, especially characters like The Flash and Green Lantern, which have such rich, long histories.

Exposition has legitimate uses. It's the most efficient way to summarize background information, including necessary information about a character's history. It can set the stage well for a major dramatized event.

I love, in movies, when you feel and you understand the past of the character without it being said or having a flashback or something that explains. I think, in 'Prisoners,' we need to understand that Loki's character's past was not first class. He was not the first in his class.

It's very important that all the supporting characters feel like they've existed in the world, that they've had a history, and they'll go on to have a history within the scope of the story rather than just popping up and then disappearing.

What I had found after the success of Karate Kid II is that an actor basically needs to - a primary requirement on my part as how I view as actor is you have to create a background, you have to create a history of that character and place her into the script that you're reading and carry on forward because you don't know how the future unfolds. This is what storytelling is you place a certain set of circumstances with a certain set of characters and you see what unfolds after an event happens.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

All the backstories are there but not talked about.

When I approached 'Animal Man,' I approached it as if it wasn't a reboot, as if the Grant Morrison and Jamie Delano stuff happened. I mean, as much as I could make it all make sense, it still all happened.

In any novel I write, I have in my mind several things which happened in the protagonist's past which I never mention in the book.

I like all of the books I work on to be ones you can pick up without knowing the entire history of the character, because then, not only can you enjoy it as is, but it encourages you to look into the history of that character and their world.

What makes a good villain is someone who doesn't just challenge the hero but comes organically out of that character's history and circumstances.

When you see 'Star Wars', and you see Greedo hustle up to Solo, you know they have a history; you understand that there's a dude named Jabba the Hutt who's after him, and Greedo is going to try to shoot him and get the money. You get what's going on there.

We felt we had to know something of his back story. I don't think people in the cinema would just accept that he's there. I think we had to learn how he (got there).

I tend to learn things physically - I guess it's my dance training. I never want to make too many choices too soon - so, while I am thinking about the character and thinking about her history, which is very vague in terms of what is given in the text, I am starting to have ideas about what her home is.

Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.

I love insane, stupid comedy, but I can only make it work if it's a character I can give some history to and make real. Like the guy I played in 'Little Miss Sunshine.' He's a maniac, but to me he was absolutely believable.

One of my earliest jobs drawing was 'Wonder Woman: Our Worlds At War,' with Phil Jimenez, which was a really cool jaunt through her history. I got to draw this two-page spread that was set in the Golden Age.

The work that I do with all of my characters is have some sense of where they come from. I kind of create my own story for myself. What's going on with my parents? Are they alive? Or family - do I have children? Do you see those things or not?