I try to get roles that challenge me in what I can do and who I think I can portray. For me, it's about creating characters with really fascinating stories, because that's what I like to watch on TV.
When I'm acting, I just want to be the character and not have to think of any film technicalities.
You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.
I'm not building each one character around one metaphor, so much as trying to build a heroic archetype that can be used to express the kind of metaphors that I find in each story.
I stopped appearing as Dracula in 1972 because in my opinion the presentation of the character had deteriorated to such an extent, particularly bringing him into the contemporary day and age, that it really no longer had any meaning.
We must raise the salaries of our operators or they will all be taken from us, that is, all that are good for anything. You will recollect that, at the first meeting of the Board of Directors, I took the ground that 'it was our policy to make the office of operator desirable, to pay operators well and make their situation so agreeable that intelligent men and men of character will seek the place and dread to lose it. ' I still think so, and, depend upon it, it is the soundest economy to act on this principle.
The degree of talent, the size of the gift, is immaterial. All artists must listen, but not all hear great symphonies, see wide canvasses, conceive complex, character-filled novels. No matter, the creative act is the same, and it is an act of faith.
I do have some kind of gravitational pull towards young characters with more responsibility than they should have.
When you create a show, and create characters, these people are like children to you.
It doesn't matter if it's a drama or a comedy, the need to get the emotion and the character arc across is way harder in something like this so was more of a preparation.
I've always chosen the roles that aren't the direct lead because I like being a very poignant character in the story, rather than being seen in every single seen.
Novels institutionalize the ruse of eros. It becomes a narrative texture of sustained incongruence, emotional and cognitive. It permits the reader to stand in triangular relation to the characters in the story and reach into the text after the objects of their desire, sharing their longing but also detached from it, seeing their view of reality but also its mistakenness. It is almost like being in love.
This medium that we're working in - film and television - for an audience, it's like you live through these characters because it's things you can't do in real life. Places you're not prepared to go in real life as a decent human being, anyway. Because if you're a conscientious person, so you live kind of vicariously through these people.
But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.
I have too much respect for the characters I play to make them anything but as real as they can possibly be. I have a great deal of respect for all of them, otherwise I wouldn't do them. And I don't want to screw them by not portraying them honestly.
A woman's character is as delicate as her eye; it can bear no flaw.
When I discipline myself to eat properly, live morally, exercise regularly, grow mentally and spiritually, and not put any drugs or alcohol in my body, I have given myself the freedom to be at my best, perform at my best, and reap all the rewards that go along with it.
The elements and majestic forces in nature, Lightning, Wind, Water, Fire, and Frost, were regarded with awe as spiritual powers, but always secondary and intermediate in character.
It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.
I know unless I'm true to myself I couldn't be happy. Too much emphasis is placed today on externals and too little on character.