Characterisation Quotes

I think there's been a tendency to place me in what has been characterised as the 'moral centre' of the film. In films like 'The Ice Storm' and 'The Crucible' and 'Nixon,' that's the sort of the persona that emerged.

There is something special about being an actor and able to bring somebody's visualisation - director, storywriter and script writer - into life. It is almost like creating a person.

There is a very thin line dividing characterisation from impersonation. I've to make sure I don't cross over into mimicry.

I like dramas because there's a big overlap between film and fiction, so I feel relatively qualified to talk about plot and characterisation and that sort of thing.

I've never tried to measure myself on any scale. A person is more multifaceted than the label they often get stuck with. On the other hand someone's whole behaviour allows you to characterise them in a certain way. This person has liberal convictions, that person has conservative ones, this person is a radical socialist, and so on.

Characterisation is more important to me than the script. A decent story and extraordinary characters can do wonders for a film, but you cannot do it the other way around.

Developing aesthetic sense is vital for actors. They must understand that there is no small role, only small actors. A good actor will do the smallest role to perfection, and be recognised.

Atanu is one of my favourite directors. His script, style of storytelling and characterisation are always very different.

A good actor just wants to deliver the writing to the audience who've paid that night. There's an agonising desire to get it right.

I'm not good at dialogue. I'm not good at holding a mirror up at a real world. I'm not good at believable characterisation.

When I'm given a role, I'm consumed by a passion to bring to life a character that exists only on paper. I mull over the character for days and internalise his feelings.

Warwick Davies is a cracking actor. The opening scene in the last 'Harry Potter' film, where he plays a captured Griphook, is mesmerising. His pacing is sublime, and the menace and regret he builds into the scene is fantastic.

As actors, we need to do our parts exactly the way they have visualised it, because if we don't, we have to keep doing it many times over.

You can't say the public likes generic characters. Give others a chance, go for a more rooted and honest characterisation, take some risk, and then let the public choose.

It's always the case, whenever you're doing someone real, how much you want to do an impression or a characterisation. If I was doing Churchill, or Gandhi - people know exactly how they talked, walked.

I am in the representational business, a portraitist. I have tried to walk an amused line amid hyperbole, documentary detail, cruel characterisation, occasional affection, some good punchlines and anthropological social insight. It's been a good living.

With comedy especially, it feels like such a clear-cut thing to be a writer-director. There is so much nuance and tone in a comedy that it's hard to contextualise it in a script.

I am a variety machine; I look for variety in my characters, and an extra edge in the characterisation helps in bringing out a better performance.