A Quote by Ellen Pompeo

There's a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they're interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they're just a mess. It's good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.

Ellen Pompeo

Quote Author

Ellen Pompeo
American - Actress
Born: November 10, 1969

I love flawed characters, male or female, and I only want to talk about flawed characters, really, in what I do.

Jenji Kohan

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.

Alexandra Daddario

It used to be that you had to make female TV characters perfect so no one would be offended by your 'portrayal' of women. Even when I started out on 'The Office' eight years ago, we could write our male characters funny and flawed, but not the women. And now, thankfully, it's completely different.

Mindy Kaling

I'm an actor, and I want to play flawed characters, and I'm a writer that wants to write flawed characters, trying to let something out and hoping people relate through that or have fun experiencing the story.

Brett Gelman

People are afraid to show women with demons. But I think it's important for women to see flawed female characters. We're held to a perfect standard, but every woman is flawed.

Riley Keough

People often ask me if I feel discriminated against as a black female director. I don't. I'm actually offered a ton of stuff. But I only want to direct what I write. And I prefer to focus on black female characters. What's most important to me is to put characters up onscreen who are not perfect, but who are human and flawed.

Gina Prince-Bythewood

I love flawed female characters, duking it out.

Lena Dunham

I try to write about real women, real people - in other words flawed characters. I find flawed characters much more interesting than perfect ones and enjoy the challenge of making readers root for them in spite of their unsympathetic path and destructive choices. Life is about the gray areas. Things are seldom black and white, even when we wish they were and think they should be, and I like exploring this nuanced terrain.

Emily Giffin

Even while I'm really interested in playing female characters that are varied and interesting and dynamic, I'm not of the mind that you always want to play strong female characters. I think I just want to play characters that are interesting, and not all people are 'strong.'

Tessa Thompson

Anytime you have a female protagonist, it's going to turn into some feminist angle, and it's not a conscious thing on my part. It's only recently that that's been pointed out by the media . . . or pointed out by fans. I also find complicated, flawed characters interesting. What's the opposite? To play one-dimensional, boring failures?

Elisabeth Moss

I don't set out to write female lead shows, necessarily. I like deeply flawed characters. When they come to me, or when I'm introduced to them, I follow the stories and the people, rather than setting out to do a female lead thing.

Jenji Kohan

I definitely identify with female leads more; I identify with real female leads, people who are flawed and have issues and make mistakes, so that the characters represent what I'm about.

Lights

All my characters are quite relatable, as they are flawed, true, and honest. All of us are flawed; nobody is pure and pious.

Vikrant Massey

Whether consciously or unconsciously, I felt myself drawn to writing a female character who was pretty flawed and not very virtuous or wonderful or attractive in these ways that throughout literary history we've come to expect female characters to be.

Leni Zumas

I'm very drawn to characters who are very flawed. I'm less interested in characters who are just good or bad, because to me then they're not real people.