It's masturbation for writers to be able to write this absolutely outrageous personality, in a character that you somehow agree with, part of the time, at least.
Until a character becomes a personality it cannot be believed. Without personality, the character may do funny or interesting things, but unless people are able to identify themselves with the character, its actions will seem unreal. And without personality, a story cannot ring true to the audience.
That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.
I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
The soul of an individual; your soul and my soul, is that part of us that is immortal. Your personality is that part of you that was born into time, that matures in time, or at least grows older in time and then decays and passes away.
The family you were raised in, the time period you were born in, and the part of the country you're in absolutely shape your view on sex, which shapes a huge part of anybody's personality.
Writers shouldn't fall in love with their characters so much that they lose sight of what they're trying to accomplish. The idea is to write a whole story, a whole book. A writer has to be able to look at that story and see whether or not a character works, whether or not a character needs further definition.
That's part of the character of Shanghainese people. They're good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality: Shanghai personality becomes part of yours. Just like New Yorkers - they're often like that.
We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone's personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.
It's nice to be able to explore both sides of my personality. I definitely relate more to Debbie, my character on The Grinder. But it's really nice because I get to play a character who's down on her luck and kinda slipping off the edge in It's Always Sunny, while at the same time getting to play this character who's a mom and holding it together on The Grinder.
Can you imagine writers influencing things in America? Can you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more - absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.
When I got a call to do the voice of Johnny in an episode of 'American Dad' titled 'I Can't Stan You,' it was a great opportunity to be a part of a really funny cutting-edge show on television. I really got into the character, and I was able to do some improvisation, which allowed me to mix in part of my personality into the script.
Enough time had passed that I was ready to write the book Hungry. Was it absolutely difficult? Completely. I had to go back and relive one of the more traumatic things in my life. I destroyed my body for three years and I nearly killed myself for a passion that I had. But I was finally able to close the door on that part of my life. It also allowed me to have a voice. And that's something I've wanted since I was a young girl, to be able to be heard.
Music helps define the character and is an extension of the character somehow, so that you are able to use both the songs themselves and the way that you sing them to tell something about the character and his story, as well as develop a performance style.
If you think about how long it takes to write a piece of music for an orchestra, it's outrageous to me, outrageous.
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.