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'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.
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.
If you want to cultivate a habit, do it without any reservation, till it is firmly established. Until it is so confirmed, until it becomes a part of your character, let there be no exception, no relaxation of effort.
Shanghainese people are 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.
In most good stories, it is the character's personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen.
A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.
I had incorrectly, for all of my adult life until 2008, believed the biggest voting myth that exists - that ex-felons cannot vote.
The serious person becomes handicapped, he creates barriers. He cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot celebrate. The very dimension of celebration disappears from his life. He becomes desert-like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not.
It has been preached in every country, taught everywhere, but only believed in by a few, because until we get the experience ourselves, we cannot believe in it.
You cannot wait until everything becomes better before you decide to have a good attitude. You have to be the best you can be right where you are.
When you start loving, your character becomes like the positive side of a magnet and the one you love becomes negative, that pulls people close to you in union, and becomes very difficult to separate.
A split personality can never become non-greedy. It can try, but it can never become. A split personality can never go beyond anger. It can try, but it can never go beyond. A split personality can never go beyond sex. It can fight. So many monks in the monasteries are doing it. They don't go beyond sex; at the most their sexuality becomes perverted, their love becomes poisoned.
Until your personality has exhausted its obsession with running the show, your soul isn’t given the space to express itself. Your personality can be threatened by your soul, because your personality has controlled your life for a long time and doesn’t want to give up control. Your personality is like a wild horse that tries to throw off the rider trying to tame it. The rider is your soul.
For an actor, his job becomes easy, when his character is described well on the paper. With a well-written role, it becomes simpler to design and understand your character.
Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.