True practical Christianity (never let it be forgotten) consists in devoting the heart and life to God; in being supremely and habitually governed by a desire to know, and a disposition to fulfill his will, and in endeavoring under the influence of these motives to 'live to his glory. ' Where these essential requisites are wanting, however amiable the character may be, however creditable and respectable among men, yet, as it possesses not the grand distinguishing essence, it must not be complimented with the name of Christianity.
I love shooting, when the character is interesting and the script is interesting, but the research beforehand is really fun. The whole process makes me anxious and restless, and I have trouble sleeping, just trying to figure out the character.
I'm not one of those actors who likes to analyze things too much, so I trust what the writers are doing with the characters, in order to give them their journey. My job is to come in and try to make those words on the page come alive on camera.
One must, so long as there is any life left, back up the character of one's life.
I like that kind of stuff. I like doing speeches. I've been lucky because I've had a lot of characters, over the years, who will have three or four page speeches.
I care about Roger Sterling, one of the most subtle and amazing characters in dramatic history [Mad men]. This guys who knows precisely who he is, yet leaves us time after time hoping desperately for him to finally grab control of his life and some responsibility for those around him.
My way in for photographing people is really their work. I'm always interested in what people make, and then I photograph the person. Sometimes the person is a disappointment. But that's the risk. It informs me a lot about the character of a person if I know their work first.
In Aristotelian terms, the good leader must have ethos, pathos and logos. The ethos is his moral character, the source of his ability to persuade. The pathos is his ability to touch feelings to move people emotionally. The logos is his ability to give solid reasons for an action, to move people intellectually.
I was powerless over my childhood but the coping strategies that I developed, to survive, all of which were creative and brilliant and got me through, as an adult those became my defects of character. Those became my shortcomings, control and all that kind of stuff. . . and that's my responsibility. I was a blameless child in what happened in the home; I take responsibility for my behaviors as an adult.
People respond to political characters in archetypal ways. A fun game is to think of a politician and ask, "Which god is that? Are they like Aries? Are they like Athena?"
The interesting thing about Hain is that he's not a very interesting character. He's not fabulously clever. He's not a great policeman. He's not hugely charismatic. I'd describe him as a kind-of Chekhovian character. He's an ordinary bloke, to whom extraordinary things have happened. Which is quite hard to play, I have to say.
I like to stay within the context of the character's background. If he's a cop, I have to make sure the audience is convinced that this person, a cop, can do only so much without a gun.
Think of every character as a main character. They believe they're the main characters in their stories. No one should just be an obstacle.
Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement; and if a story is told of more than common interest, ennui is sure to have its joy in adding embellishments. If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?
[The Cretans have] more wit than words.
I don't keep anything on paper (except within an actual novel in progress, at which point I need a file to keep track of plot threads, characters, and so on).
Oh, well, I can't tell you; it would be telling you the end. It's a one-character lip-syncing because in the early days, that's what my dad was doing.
I'm just enjoying playing a character of myself. People's mouths drop when I dance, but my friends are like, "You dance like that in the kitchen!"
It's a challenge for me to make people like me. Maybe it's just my desperate need for people to like me, that I choose the characters I have to play. You will like me, I don't care what I've done, you're going to like me.
She's a very charismatic character, and she holds the whole play together.