Quotes About Character

I think every time you take a female character, a black character, a Hispanic character, a gay character, and make that the point of the character, you are minimalizing the character.

The first thing that happens is the cleansing of the former character. I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there is usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character played prior to the movie. Then you want to think about what the character represents, and you write down all of the elements about this character and then take the time to find some synchronicity and start breathing the character.

My work sanitizes it (emotion) but it is also symbolic of commercial art sanitizing human feelings. I think it can be read that way.... People mistake the character of line for the character of art. But it's really the position of line that's important, or the position of anything, any contrast, not the character of it.

I think you should identify with your character, but plenty of people like themselves and hate themselves. You just have to find out what's truthful for the person you're playing. When people talk about that, I think what they're saying is that as an actor, as Peter, you don't want to make a judgment that comes from your worldview about the character. Your judgments should be coming from the place of the character, and within that space, sure, you could love or hate yourself or whatever you think is most appropriate.

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

I've always been very strong minded on character-based fights and character-based action. If you take the character out of the action and you just shoot it as an action sequence, the audience starts to lose connection.

I started doing comedy just as myself, because I thought, "This is what's expected, you're meant to tell stories and do observations." And then I started to realize that I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I started to doing songs, and I had a little keyboard onstage and would bring in little props. Then I thought about the idea of talking about a character and becoming the character onstage. So, it sort of morphed into being stand-up that was more character based, and I found that's the stuff I got the better reaction from and was more exciting for me.

If you do a character, always make the character with a big question mark. Even if the character is very enigmatic and all over the place, make him always with a question mark, because if you turn a question mark upside down, like they do in South America in Spanish, then it becomes a hook.

I think the best way to become a character is by osmosis as opposed to thinking directly about stuff. The more material that you have and understand and have a going in, then the more complex your character and the understanding of your character will be.

Undeniably, character does count for our citizens, out communities, and our Nation, and this week we celebrate the importance of character in our individual lives... core ethical values of trustworthiness, fairness, responsibility, caring, respect, and citizenship form the foundation of our democracy, our economy, and our society... Instilling sound character in our children is essential to maintaining the strength of our Nation into the 21st century.

He's [Jesus] the most fascinating character in history, really - the character who's made more difference to the world than anyone since him. I daresay that Muslims would say Muhammad was that character, but I think Jesus had a sort of 600-year start on him.

Brian is an archetypal character, a bit like Don Juan, which is how I play him. He's a blast to play. He believes unapologetically in his freedom. He holds nothing back. Something I'm learning is, you can't hate the character you play. If I think my character is an asshole, that's all that will come across. He is drawn in an extreme way, but that doesn't mean he's not a person.

Character is something each one of us must build for himself, out of the laws of God and nature, the examples of others, and - most of all - out of the trials and errors of daily life. Character is the total of thousands of small daily strivings to live up to the best that is in us. Character is the final decision to reject whatever is demeaning to oneself or to others and with confidence and honest to choose the right.

Life is what our character makes it. We fashion it, as a snail does its shell. A man can say: I never made a fortune because it is not in my character to be rich.

On 'Think Like a Man,' they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

When I'm writing a comic book, I'm thinking about a character that I'm going to be drawing on the page. I've never drawn a character to look like who I want to cast in a movie because I don't think that way. I'm a real monomaniac. I do one thing at a time.

I can easily come up with ten really iconic stories/trade paperbacks for Superman, Batman, others... name me ten equally big, iconic Wonder Woman stories. Much harder. That ain't the character's fault, that isn't sexism, that's just not servicing the character.

Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.

Character is destiny and character is important to American campaigns.

That's always my ambition is to create a character out of what will help tell the story. I've never been an actor to say my character wouldn't do that, because he should do that in order to help tell the story.

What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.

Dustin Hoffman said this one time, that if he hadn't made it as a film star, he would still be happy as a character actor because he was a character actor because of his face from day one, so he would always work in the theater.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

I live in New York, and Clara lives in Recife. The character is Brazilian, and as I read the script, I felt like Kleber [Mendonca] had been spying on me in order to create this role [in Aquarius]. Clara and I have different backgrounds. I come from an intuitive world, and she's an academic, but when we got together, we really became one. There are many times when I'm watching the film where Clara will say something, and I will find myself agreeing with her. It was the first time that I had this weird sensation that the character I played is so me, but yet it's so her.

We just, you know, we're just sort of doing it like Bewitched, because we just think that the character of Kenny is so specific and so outrageous and so fun. And by far the hardest character to cast out of everybody to find someone who was capable of, you know, doing, you know, the comedy and just with the broadness and to be also just a really brilliant actor, you know, to do naturalism.

Comedy really is my bread and butter, even when I'm doing a serious character, with the exception of Outcast. I have found very little humor in this character. Most of the time, what I do, somewhere there is comedy in it.

Throughout our lives, we develop our character consciously or unconsciously. In your journey to a life beyond amazing, you'll learn to develop your character in ways that bring remarkable rewards.

Im not the kind of actress that goes home with the character. I mean, youre thinking about the work or the next days scenes, but not staying in character. But as a film goes on, you become more and more fragile, emotionally. And physically too, actually.

You know, he would go and look at different funny books because he wanted his character to be different and make different faces. I saw a funny book in his room and it looked like the same character he was playing. It was about a duck.

I wanted Yoda to be the traditional kind of character you find in fairy tales and mythology. And that character is usually a frog or a wizened old man on the side of the road. The hero is going down the road and meets this poor and insignificant person. The goal or lesson is for the hero to learn to respect everybody and to pay attention to the poorest person because that's where the key to his success will be.

Were not one thing, as human beings, so any character that is written uni-dimensional, thats just a shallow character with shallow writing and shallow acting.

To follow Christ is to become more like Him. It is to learn from His character. As spirit children of our Heavenly Father, we do have the potential to incorporate Christlike attributes into our life and character. The Savior invites us to learn His gospel by living His teachings. To follow Him is to apply correct principles and then witness for ourselves the blessings that follow.

I was 19 years when I got into acting training classes at a TV station and then I found a way to express my feelings. My father left us when I was a kid and I just shut down all of my emotions. I wasn't talkative; I didn't know how to communicate with people. I tried to separate from people. After I got into the classes I found a way of expressing myself through characters. I can cry behind a character, I can shout behind a character and it became a relief. And it's fun.

If there be a mind that, not perceiving in the narratives we have compared the fingermarks of tradition, and hence the legendary character of these evangelical anecdotes, still leans to the historical interpretation, whether natural or supernatural; that mind must be alike ignorant of the true character both of legend and of history, of the natural and the supernatural.

Circumstances don't create character. They reveal character.

People who were also traders were also men of Sufism, as we see around Java, people who were outwardly trading but were also men of very high spiritual character. Otherwise no trader would be able to convert a person from one religion to another. It was because they were men of spiritual character.

To start your life as a character of 120 years when you are in your late thirties, and then go back in time about 20 years later to play the same character who is your own age then, its very complicated, but very interesting.

There is a sort of natural instinct of human dignity in the heart of man which steels his very nerves not to bend beneath the heavy blows of a great adversity. The palm-tree grows best beneath a ponderous weight, even so the character of man. There is no merit in it, it is a law of psychology. The petty pangs of small daily cares have often bent the character of men, but great misfortunes seldom. There is less danger in this than in great good luck.

I just want to do shows because you get to see, over all the seasons, the person grow, and you get to grow with the character. That transformation, for me, is what I love about my job. I get to learn about myself and challenge myself and grow with the character. For me, it's a whole process of learning and growing.

To watch an American on a beach, or crowding into a subway, or buying a theatre ticket, or sitting at home with his radio on, tells you something about one aspect of the American character: the capacity to withstand a great deal of outside interference, so to speak; a willing acceptance of frenzy which, though it's never self-conscious, amounts to a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively, and even offensive, character. They are a tough race in this.

The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.

In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.

It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.

Never does a man portray his character more vividly than when proclaiming the character of another.

The "difficult" female character can-and will-do the shocking, the unexpected and, as a consequence, will give your story an immediate jolt of energy. She is the character who doesn't fit the mold.

TV is longer form, and that's sometimes a positive, and sometimes a more challenging thing. As an actor, you want to be able to have your character develop or transform in some way. When you're acting on a show over the course of multiple seasons, you get to watch a character really grow and change, and go from one place to an entirely other place.

Don't be discouraged, but know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance brings character, and character brings hope, and this is a hope which will not disappoint us.

Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.