A Quote by Carrie Preston
When you're doing a play that's fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV.
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I just didn't want to get bored playing a character, and that's kind of the benefit of doing films; you've lived with a character for four or five months and that's it, and you walk away from that character and you feel like you told a story.
People say that you want to be varied in your career, and I've done so many things and am very appreciative. But, the one thing I've never done and wanted to do was to be a regular on a TV show, where you get 22 weeks of the year to develop and play a character. I've done arcs of five or eight episodes on shows, but I'd like to have a character that's rich enough and deep enough to want to explore and live with for a few years. Playing the same character, but doing different scenes seems very exciting to me.
When you do a play, or even a movie, you have weeks to finesse your character. You really understand why they do what they do. In TV, you get new material weekly about your character.
When you're no longer seeing yourself, in some ways. You're as close to being as you can be.I suppose that's consistent with the moment that the mind actually turns off, and is no longer questioning what you're doing. When the questions stop, that's when the real acting takes over. And trying to get to the point where the questions stop, "Would I do this? How do I feel about that as a character?" When those stop, and it's just doing X, Y, and zed, because that's what you'd do as this character, because you're inside this character somehow - that's when it really kicks off.
Playing a TV character for seven years is almost like when you do a play. You live, breathe, and everything else with that character 24-7 for six months or four months or whatever, and that gets very deep in your blood. When you do a TV character for seven years, that's a long time. It becomes a seminal era in your life.
It is quite different, but I love doing a series because you get to live with a character for a much longer amount of time. And the other aspect of it is that you have a steady job.
I personally am happy doing a finite series as I can't play a single character for three years. Hats off to the actors who stay in a character for three four years and enjoy every moment of their character.
When I get excited about a character, I'll start doing things as the character and thinking about what the character would do.
Character, character, character. First, second and third ... we were pretty rusty initially. When you have a break for a few weeks you get a bit of rust.
TV [series] is a six-year decision. It's not four or five weeks. If a filmmaker and I don't get along, it's four weeks of your life, so whatever.
The vision preached by my father a half-century ago was that his four little children would no longer live in a nation where they would judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. However, sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin's mother and father remind us that, far too frequently, the color of one's skin remains a license to profile, to arrest and to even murder with no regard for the content of one's character.
The problem is if you play enough of parts in films that are sort of more financial products than anything or films in which the girl is a thankless, thoughtless, underwritten character along the way, you're no longer the person who had something fresh or vital to offer. I think it really does start to diminish some part of you, to put yourself through things you don't really want to be doing.
I believe in method acting. Whenever I'm working on a character, I start behaving like him. I start doing these things which the character would normally do. Maybe that's the way I function as an actor, and I believe in it. And that's how I try and portray a character.
All I ever wanted to do was get a great job on a TV show. When I read 'Modern Family' and started looking at what was available - I obviously couldn't play Gloria; I couldn't play Claire. When I saw the character of Cam, I was like, 'I have to have a shot at this,' because I thought it was a character that would be really fun to play.
It's funny: it takes a while to really get your character. It's impossible to do it on the first day. That's the same way in films; if you start shooting a film, maybe a couple weeks in, you're like, "Ah! Now I think I really get him."
You want to be challenged, so you feel like you want to get up and wrestle with the character or enjoy the character - especially with a TV show, because you know you could be doing it for a long time, so you want to make sure it's something you really enjoy.
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