A Quote by Jeffrey Eugenides
There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place.
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When I'm writing, I just kind of put myself in a place, in a certain time period in my life.
I am writing to please myself, though there is a feeling in some place in my head that this may be publishable. I haven't been writing for nothing.
Actually, I was writing as I was acting - it was kind of simultaneous. I wrote on 'E20', which started this whole 'EastEnders' journey. It's not like I was writing and then I got into acting - they have always been kind of together for me.
When you are writing, you have to love all your characters. If you're writing something from a minor character's point of view, you really need to stop and say the purpose of this character isn't to be somebody's sidekick or to come in and put the horse in the stable. The purpose of this character is you're getting a little window into that character's life and that character's day. You have to write them as if they're not a minor character, because they do have their own things going on.
I'll never forget my high school acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, who said, "It starts with the shoes." When I think about a character, it does start with the shoes: What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I'm going to put on a dress for a role - I don't care if it's the hardest dress to put on - I have to put the shoes on first. The physicality leads me to the character.
Because I came to acting quite late, I kind of think one of the few attributes that I do have is that I try to be honest with the character, with the writing. I'm not a tricksy actor; I'm not exactly a scenery-chewing kind of actor.
I don't work with an outline, except a vague one in my head, a general idea of character, place, arc... I'm like a composer with a symphony in their head: I can hear the music, I just have to figure out how to put it down on paper. But I don't always know where my stories are going when I begin.
What I try to do in writing any character is to put myself in his position.
It's - you know, acting's all about relatability and finding empathy for a character, which is essentially, kind of, you're finding empathy with a part of yourself, which is a part of a character that was written by someone else, which was essentially kind of a part of them as well because it was a voice in their head they wrote down.
I like acting and things when I like the writing. If I don't like the writing, I don't like acting. I think in some ways everything starts for me from the place of writing.
Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.
I will always be an actress. I couldn't see myself without acting. But I'd love to direct and keep writing. I don't think one has to be in place of the other.
I usually have a location and then I put the character there. I love place names. I think I'm tricking myself by being so specific - it suddenly becomes real to me. Just because I say it's Chicago, Illinois doesn't mean it's true, but place names sort of make me grounded and then I can put some people there.
I think the best models are actors, you're taking on a character. In that sense, I have been acting for a long time. It didn't seem like a crazy transition. Acting is a bigger step into modelling in a way. Modelling is easier when you don't look like yourself. When you look like a different person, you feel different. Acting goes deeper into that, you have to move and talk like that character. I love it.
I grew up loving fantasy, adventure, and children's book series. At the time, I was in a place in LA where I wasn't working and I kind of thought to myself, "What do I really want to do? Like, what kind of role would be really exciting for me?" And I sort of thought about being in an adventurous, magical, fantastical world and a character that was powerful and sophisticated and perhaps even a dandy, that might have even passed in my head, and then I got an audition for the show ["The Magicians"] shortly after.
I'm not the kind of actress that goes home with the character. I mean, you're thinking about the work or the next day's scenes, but not staying in character. But as a film goes on, you become more and more fragile, emotionally. And physically too, actually.
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