When you're the guy inside of a character and you've lived with it for almost two years, you're always a bit defensive about the character, and you want to root for the character you're playing.
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.
Where does a character come from? Because a character, at the end of the day, a character will be the combination of the writing of the character, the voicing of the character, the personality of the character, and what the character looks like.
My thing about looking good is that it should be the character. If I'm playing a character who's concerned about his body - an athlete, say - I'll get in shape. If I'm playing a character who doesn't or wouldn't, I don't. I almost never get in shape for a movie, even though I know it would be a good career move.
I think every time you take a female character, a black character, a Hispanic character, a gay character, and make that the point of the character, you are minimalizing the character.
I have always been a big fan of the character and am more of a moviegoer than a comic book guy, there is always something about the character of Batman that is very elemental. There is a great powerful myth to the character and romantic element that draws from a lot of literary sources
I've said this before, but I've always felt more comfortable playing the guy who thinks he's the hot shot or thinks he's the greatest and is so far from it, you know? The misguided character. That's always more interesting to me - especially with a comedy. I've always felt inside more like a character actor.
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.
The first thing that happens is the cleansing of the former character. I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there is usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character played prior to the movie. Then you want to think about what the character represents, and you write down all of the elements about this character and then take the time to find some synchronicity and start breathing the character.
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.
When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world. When I'm not at my desk, the rest of the time, I try to stay in that character and see the world the way that character would It's almost like method acting in a way — keeping the character close the way the actor keeps a script close and always tries to be in character.
When I play a gay character, I want to be as believable as possible. And when I'm playing a straight character, I also want to be as believable as possible. So the less that people know about my personal life, the more believable I can be as a character.
I learned a lot from Dick Wolf. I'll always remember playing that character because it was such a good character. It was great to be able to be a character like that for television. I think the thing that I'll bring from the whole experience, the whole 10 years, is I had never been interested in the television business before.
I'm a big fan of character actors like Johnny Depp and Gary Oldman. My goal is to continue playing character roles in indie films and move into playing character leads.
I think, for every actor, the most challenging part of playing a character, specially a real-life character, is to convince yourself that you are the character.
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.
Taking on an iconic character is difficult, sure, people associate different actors with a character that you're playing, but there's something in rehearsing and developing a new character.