Explore Quotes on Character

A lot of actors would tell you that they'd rather play the villain than the hero. When you're the character, there are no repercussions. So there is a kind of liberating feeling about saying certain things to certain people - and I think that it's always quite satisfying to do that.

Whenever I have tried to make a character bad, they end up being good in some way.

People in the U.K. absolutely love my character in 'Downton,' and in equal measure, people absolutely hate him, and that's all I wanted.

But the fact I'm even getting to play a character that the producer, director and writers want me to play is a rarity in the industry. You'd think it happens all the time. It doesn't. There are so many hoops to jump through to get cast in something.

Jekyll is quite me: young man; polite. But being able to play Hyde was quite fun, to create a character that's nothing like me. I quite enjoyed creating a new character like that: he had a different voice; physicality; mannerisms. Everything had to be thought about. It was a real challenge.

You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.

As long as I don't go onstage completely normal and then jump into character onstage, I assume that most fans would be able to accept me as the creator. I can comment on the work the same way a director would on his movie.

Having a sweet, wide-eyed, awkward character is more charming and allows for more range. If you come from anger, you're going to reach a ceiling very quickly.

Accents are very easy for me. With me, it's clothing and makeup and hair and all that stuff that inform how the character moves and feels.

It feels to me like 'Shazam' will have a tone unto itself. It's a DC comic, but it's not a Justice League character, and it's not a Marvel comic. The tone and the feeling of the movie will be different from the other range of comic book movies.

One never wants to do anything that's going to break that 'sculpture of the character' that's been done so far, or make anything that's been done so far become illogical in any way, so you always want to try to connect when you're doing a series of films that has a continuous character.

I'm a character and relationship guy, and even with the 'Saw' films, it's special-effects people's jobs to create these scary things. It's not my job. My job is to bring some sense of humanity to the character, no matter how evil he may be. The script is going to take me there.

All the important drawings I do myself. Every single character is also done by me.

I have three assistants, but there isn't a head assistant. All the important drawings I do myself. Every single character is also done by me.

People are used to seeing me in make-up and blow-dried hair but after a point I felt like pushing myself. As an actor, I try to inhabit the character. It is the way to tell people about your skills through your looks.

The significance of playing a South Asian character that's a lead role in a network primetime television show is certainly not lost on me.

What character actors want to do is investigate new types of people and present them in all their idiosyncrasies, psychological complexities, and contradictory stupidities. That has been one of the great delights over our seven collaborations.

There's posh character actors. For God's sake, Olivier was one of the greatest character actors in the world. Hamlet, Shylock, Othello - Othello! Whether you like it or not.

You're trying to form this human being that will fit the bill, and the human being becomes a hand, and the research is a glove, and you try to bring this character together into the research, mesh it, and create this person that is the sum total of all that endeavor.

There's two types of character actors. There's character actors who play all different characters. Or there's actors who always play the same part; they're just a bit funny-looking.

My job as a character actor is to make me fit the character, to serve the character. To present this human being who turns up in a piece of film or entertainment that's going, you know, exist as if it might exist after the film is finished and it existed before the film has started.