A Quote by Barret Oliver
Everyone can do a character the way they want to do it, unless the director tells them not to, which isn't very common. I like to do my characters, if it's not specific in the script, as myself.
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I felt like the script [of "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore"] was so clear. It was sort of packed full of information. [Macon Blair] puts in a lot of discussion in the script. Characters are introduced very thoughtfully. The way he described walking into particular environments was very specific.
Definitely the script because you want to be part of an interesting story, you want your character to be a challenge, then comes the director. But essentially it's the script first and whether it's a character that you think you can do.
Any script, even like The Founder, if it's something that I imagine myself playing this character or that character - any of the characters, basically - how do we flesh these characters out to be good enough to have amazing actors that come in that make it really difficult for them to say no? Even though I'm not right for any of those parts, that's just kind of how we go about it.
Particularly, the actors, to have analyzed the script in great detail from the point of view of their specific character. So that they have a handle on exactly where the character is in the chronology of things. In that sense the actors become your best check on the logic of the piece, and the way in which it all fits together. They become essential collaborators. The main thing is you have to work with very smart actors.
There are all very different directors. Some are more specific, some are calmer than others when the pressure is on, some use more colorful language and they all communicate differently. But they all have love and care in common. They are all artists. And they have voices that I believe shine through within their films. To add to that, as a director myself I have learned so much from all three. I would like to thank them for that.
You want everyone to be a full character. No one is just evil, or very few people are, hopefully. They're characters, so you want to flush them out. You've got to show all sides of them. There is definitely an antagonistic relationship between guards and prisoners, and I do think it flares up.
It's not about the script: it's about who the director is and who the other people in the cast are. Because you can look at a great script and execute it in a very sophomoric way, and you can look at an OK script, and you can execute it in a very sophisticated way and come out with something really good.
I just don't want to be bored. That's the only criteria I have when I choose a role to play. I like it if the script is good and the director seems like he's gonna be good. But if I can find a variety of things to do, which I feel like I manage to do, as far as the actual performing goes and the character, that's huge for me. To be able to feel like I can do a fairly diverse array of things. I've been lucky in that way. I don't mind being stereotyped in some way and playing certain kinds of guys, but if I can find something to occasionally get a break from that, that would be nice.
There are still plenty of people who want to burn me at the stake for my Wonder Woman run. And I can't really blame them, you know? That was my take on the character, and when people are invested in the characters, they see them very clearly and in the way they like.
People are flawed. I like peaking into their flaws. The way to humanize them is not to play them in any general way, but to make them very specific. If you make them specific, they have hopes and dreams and loves and vulnerabilities and quirks and you get to know them and you get to appreciate them.
Sometimes, when actors reach out to their characters, they're nowhere in sight. They need to find something inside of them. And then the characters are right there. As a director, I want them to find the character that's already inside them, instead of trying to manufacture or manipulate or make something up. That's not really honest or true.
You do research into specific occupations of the character, with specific behaviorisms that their daily life might give them. You do as much research as you want, as you can. Now that you have such open access to the Internet, it's very easy to do so.
To me, it always comes down to character and script and then director. If a character belongs to me, it's mine. We belong to each other, and I feel a fierce need to tell that story, and it just so happens that a lot of these characters have been residing in pretty dark worlds.
When I'm making the movie, I absolutely do. I work so hard, and out of the raw material that is the script and talks I have with the director, the writer, I create, I hope, a very specific person who wouldn't have otherwise existed. However, do I then attach and hang on to the finished product? No. The experience of the creation of the character is what feeds me, what excites me, challenges me.
I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.
The way I pick movies is, first, if the script is any good. Then, if the script is good, who else is in it, the director, the producer, all that. If you have all that, there's a chance the movie will be great. If the script isn't right, or the director or cast isn't right, you've got no shot in hell.
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