I would love to be on a really good show and share all the stuff that goes into creating a big TV show and get my audience into it. I think that makes it personal and makes the audience feel like they're a part of it.
It's basically how I choose movie roles. Would I like to see this movie? Is this movie important? Why would I do this? And Headhunters is a movie that I would like to see in the cinema. And when it's sold to 50 countries or whatever, for me it's a great deal. I make movies for an audience so if that audience grows, I feel really honoured and thankful for it.
If I can get the audience to connect with the characters emotionally - and they love who they are, they love the larger-than-life situation that they're in, but most of all get the audience invested in the characters - then I always feel like I can sort of put them in the most outrageous circumstances, and the audience is okay to go with that.
I have always liked kind of outsider characters. In the movies I grew up liking, you had more complicated characters. I don't mean that in a way that makes us better or anything. I just seem to like characters who don't really fit into. You always hear that from the studio: "You have to be able to root for them, they have to be likeable, and the audience has to be able to see themselves in the characters." I feel that's not necessarily true. As long as the character has some type of goal or outlook on the world, or perspective, you can follow that story.
You can do a good movie, or you can do a good movie that can help people to feel the idea of what it is like to live. It can be good in an artificial way; it can be also a good movie for your own existence. You don't know that when you do a movie. You don't know if you succeeded, which is the most difficult thing.
I'm grateful that so many viewers have related to characters I've played. I think many in the audience see themselves in my characters or feel like the characters are similar to their friends or sisters.
If a movie makes it really big, they do the obvious thing, right? They make an amusement park ride out of it. ... The connection is obvious. You get off, "Man, that was just like the movie! Only the movie had a storyline and characters, and that was a little more like a roller coaster."
It makes you feel good when a movie works. Usually when I see an old movie I've made, I say to myself, 'Oh God, why did I do this?' and 'Why didn't I change that?' and things like that.
I think there's a difference between making a feel-good movie like 'Think Like a Man' and a feel-good show like 'Common Law.' It's not too heavy, it's not too serious. You just walk away with a smile on your face. I think that makes people somewhat more endearing to you.
When you're in sync with the director, on the type of movie you want to make, the arc of the characters, how the characters intertwine and interact, plotlines and story, and things like that, it really makes a difference.
Also expressionistic filmmaking - making the audience feel like they were inside the characters' heads. And so we create all these different types of techniques to put the audience there.
I've always thought of the audience. I just want to entertain the audience. That's what it's about: what's good for the movie, what's best for the movie, what's best for the audience.
When you're watching a show like this or watching a movie, sometimes when you have big music in a scene, it tends to push the viewer out of the scene and makes someone feel like an audience member rather than like they're in the scene.
For me as an audience member, it makes the characters more relatable and interesting if they're evolving and changing - it makes them feel more real in a way. But not every cartoon is trying to be real.
If a movie has more characters than an audience can keep track of, the audience will get confused and lose interest in the story.
What makes an audience watch something and care about the characters is the emotional life of the characters.