You relate to a character and you find that character within yourself. It's all parts of me. I don't leave characters behind. I just let them go.
Any character that you come up with or create is a piece of you. You're putting yourself into that character, but there's the guise of the character. So there's a certain amount of safety in the character, where you feel more safe being the character than you do being just you
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.
With acting, you have to become someone else. That's the fun part of it for me - to step outside of yourself and become a character. I guess being Jimmy Cliff is a little bit of a character, too.
I write from this tight third-person viewpoint, where each chapter is seen through the eyes of one individual character. When I'm writing that character, I become that character and identify with that character.
At Second City and improvising at iO, you're creating a character in an instant. All of a sudden, you're creating this history and this past for your character, and you're discovering it while you're doing it, and that's part of the fun of it.
I think every time you take a female character, a black character, a Hispanic character, a gay character, and make that the point of the character, you are minimalizing the character.
I never liked the whole idea of [creating your own] background, if it's not pertinent, where the character lived as a child, and who I was and how I was. That never helped me in any way, so I don't even do that.
I'm not averse to being a supporting character. I try to pick parts where I can add something.
I realized there's a difference between creating a character and sustaining a character. The challenge that comes with sustaining a character is that you have this sudden impulse to think about all the things the audience liked.
Every actor has his own approach towards acting. I believe you do not become the character you are playing. You may get closer to it but you do not lose yourself. There's just a reflection of the character in you.
When you play a character, you bring yourself into the character. You get a chance to shine and show your translation for the character and her state of mind.
I think, for every actor, the most challenging part of playing a character, specially a real-life character, is to convince yourself that you are the character.
When you have to play a character that seems to be a relatively decent person and seems to be like yourself, I think the trick in that kind of character, so that you don't become a cliche, is to find where their weaknesses are.
Encourage your kids to be creative. When you see them tracing a character from TV or a comic, say something like, 'That's nice. Now how about you create a character yourself?' Keep kids curious and excited about creating.
The first thing that happens is the cleansing of the former character. I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there is usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character played prior to the movie. Then you want to think about what the character represents, and you write down all of the elements about this character and then take the time to find some synchronicity and start breathing the character.