A Quote by Marin Ireland

The thing I respond to the most is just great writing, interesting characters. I like to think that there is something fun about playing a character that has a lot of authority in her own life.
To a female superhero her sexiness is not the most important thing about her, it's her mind, her spirit, and when I look at that character that to me is an example of characters that I like to play and I think it does a great thing for women.
The thing I'm writing now, I have various characters, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this couple dies. And they have a daughter. ...I thought, 'OK, we have to do something with the daughter' ... then I realized she's not really their daughter. She has her own story. And she's become the most interesting character. She was this throwaway character that I didn't even conceive of before I started writing her into it, and now she's become very important in this book.
I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I'm writing about women, I think I'm writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history.
I think it's interesting playing characters who are flawed and make mistakes because we all have - no one's just one thing - no one is just bad or just good - so I like finding flawed characters and playing with their redeeming qualities, whether you play it outwardly or not. I think that one of the reasons I'm an actor is that I love people and I love finding out who they are and why they do the things they do, so it is fun to play those kinds of characters.
The writer must always leave room for the characters to grow and change. If you move your characters from plot point to plot point, like painting by the numbers, they often remain stick figures. They will never take on a life of their own. The most exciting thing is when you find a character doing something surprising or unplanned. Like a character saying to me: ‘Hey, Richard, you may think I work for you, but I don’t. I’m my own person.’
I think the thing I took most from game playing was just getting in the characters head. I took it really seriously. There's something about creating your character.
I'm socially awkward. What draws me to playing socially awkward characters? I think they're interesting. I'm fascinated kind of by - I mean, I know I'm sure I've got my own social awkwardness but I'm kind of fascinated by that and I lived, probably, I attribute it - I lived in New York for a long time, road the subways, saw a lot of awkwardness, but they're just interesting. They're not cookie cutter. They're usually very colorful characters. They see things different ways and, I don't know, its just a kind of - just a kind of life that interesting to me.
When you are writing, you have to love all your characters. If you're writing something from a minor character's point of view, you really need to stop and say the purpose of this character isn't to be somebody's sidekick or to come in and put the horse in the stable. The purpose of this character is you're getting a little window into that character's life and that character's day. You have to write them as if they're not a minor character, because they do have their own things going on.
I never even think about the physicality of roles, until honestly I get the gig and I think, 'OK, now what do I have to do in this one?' Like, I approach it thinking more about the character - do I respond to it? Is it something I think I can play? Does it seem like it'll be fun?
I think the thing that made this stand out the most was just the fact that there's a lot more character to these characters. We see their back stories and we see their present situations, and that was a lot more interesting than just the regular procedural with four heads standing around a body, spelling it out for you. It's a lot more of a roller coaster ride.
I don’t mind if the character is a small character, but I would just like her to have a journey in the film. Sometimes the characters are just there as a prop to further the man’s story. The great directors I’ve talked to, I’ve said listen, I don’t mind playing a woman that is a tiny part, but how does the story affect her? What can I play in the end that’s different from the beginning? Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense, because it’s just like being a prop.
I like playing strange characters. Some people might say it has something to do with a hidden part of myself, but I think it's a lot simpler than that: normal people are just not very interesting.
One of the great things about the longer you do a character, the more the writers start to understand your kind of character ticks and things that you like to do. The most exciting thing I think for a writer is when the characters just start speaking for themselves. You sit down at your keyboard and just stuff starts jumping out of their mouths. They just sort of wrote the scripts for themselves.
I would love to just continue playing characters that break the mold. I like making interesting decisions when playing characters, so, taking something that would seem one way and then playing it a different way.
For me, I just like to be as fun as possible, but I do like to bring a lot to a character. Given the script or the show, I know my boundaries, limits, and how far I can go with it. As far as me choosing these characters that have a lot of personality, I don't necessarily think it's intentional. I just think that I try and come up with a backstory of who they are, depending on the script or how rounded these characters are, and just go from there.
I like playing complex, interesting characters. Sometimes I don't think there's much of a strong line between right and wrong for a character. Every character is somewhere on a moral spectrum.
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