A Quote by Ben Dolnick
There's something to be said for a likable character, but fiction has a way of upending our ordinary standards.
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There's this thing in Hollywood about the sympathetic character and likability. I've never understood that because the people I love most in my life are not likable all the time. My wife is not always likable. I'm certainly not always likable. My dad is not always likable. We're human beings.
We used to have adults who set standards, moral standards, cultural standards, legal standards. They were better than we were. They gave us something to aspire to. They were people that we described as having dignity and character. That's all gone now, particularly the upper levels of the Democrat Party. There isn't any of that kind of decency, dignity, character, morality.
There's such an emphasis on having a character be likable. I don't think it would be helpful if I worried about that. I mean, not everyone's likable.
Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable.
Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different... Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.
I don't worry about whether a character is likable, as long as the character is believable.
Ultimately, if the character is interesting and you said that before: It doesn't matter if it's likable. That's really what it is. If they interest you. If the context in which the characters are set interests you then I think then you're pulled in by it.
When you start to prioritize hiring likable people within your organization, these likable people will attract other likable people.
The truth is that, to me, a likeable character is a character that is really flawed, so I don't know what people mean when they say 'likable.'
What makes a strong female character is a character who has weaknesses, who has flaws, who is maybe not immediately likable, but eventually relatable.
I think you've really got to cling to what makes sense to you. Obviously, I'm not a serial murderer in my real life, so that's where you have to delve into and do all the research. But, you have to find something likable in the character.
I like to play with transgression and upending conventions, and I like the idea of rooting genre films in character.
It is important not to force a character into something. Fiction writers can be too controlling - usually that's a terror of our own unconscious processes.
It's relatively easy to create an ambiguous character. Any conglomeration of likable and unlikeable traits, chosen at random, will result in an ambiguous character. Getting an audience to deeply identify with a character, on the other hand, is one of the hardest things in the world to do.
When you play a non-fiction character it is more responsibility than when you are playing a fiction character because that person lived, and you do want to pay respect to that.
As we grow older, we should learn that these are two quite different things. Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters. We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable.
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