Quote

I think that quite often you can only find a choice between bad and worse. But I think it's worth making the effort, and I like to expose my characters to that sort of situation.

I think you have to find the humanity in the character and then the deterioration is a part of the process - the journey of the character. It's like playing King Lear. You can start off as a nice old man who finishes up crazy.

I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.

If you change a character too much, the audience falls out of love with the character, but characters need to evolve and grow over the years.

I like the way that psychological extremity can illuminate more 'normal' characters by forcing a comparison.

I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story.

With a face like mine, I'm never going to play a character who conquers the universe, I'm going to play characters who are subject to forces bearing down on them. My career's based on how we are rather than how we wish we were - they get the good-looking boys in for that kind of role.

That's one of those things that will really hurt me personally, if I label a character or think about what it might do if it were to do well. I just try to do a good job with it.

As a writer, I have this compulsion to take characters who appear formidable and bombard them with adversity until they crumble. What's interesting is watching them rise again, and seeing how they've changed and grown, if indeed they have.

I think character is permanent, and issues are transient.