Tragic Characters Quotes

'Beloved' is a book that makes me cry.

A laughing Lear would be monstrous. Not so a laughing Romeo and Juliet.

I've often wanted to play the victim, or somebody who makes terrible choices. I would love to play the alcoholic mother who horribly lets down her children. That's a great morally imperiled role.

I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.

I write tragedies and things when I'm alone. Chekhovian dramas.

That's why Tennessee Williams was a great writer. Poetically, dramatically, it was fantastic stuff. And with the landscape, the losers in life populating it. His short stories have got rhythm, something musical about them.

I think I am fascinated with slightly tragic characters.

In world mythology, there are countless examples of tragic characters whose greatest strength is also the source of their undoing. But the ancient Greeks and Romans also held the view that acceptance is the beginning of wisdom.

The characters I've played that I like the most are people that have a lot of obstacles. They have a lot of bad things going on. They're seeking to do something good amidst all the detritus around them, and they're aware of how badly they've screwed it up. That kind of self-awareness is tragic.

I'm drawn to a lot of tragedies, and I love a Greek tragedy.But I would think - I start thinking realistically about it, and performing eight days a week, that would take a toll. I take things to heart. I don't know if I could survive, like, "Medea."

Noir deals with the disenfranchised: people who can't catch a break under normal circumstances. In noir books, you root for these people, but you know they are going to fail. That's what makes them so compellingly human. I can relate to that kind of stuff.

We become lovers when we see Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet makes us students. The blood of Duncan is upon our hands, with Timon werage against the world, and when Lear wanders out upon the heath the terror of madness touches us. Ours is the white sinlessness of Desdemona, and ours, also, the sin of Iago.

When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.