Balthazar Balsan is not a self-portrait. If he was, I'd have made the character more flattering.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I paint a person, his enemies always find the portrait a good likeness.
'Balthazar' is very much about the title hero having to choose between his past and his future. For the first time in a long time, he has a chance to be happy - with Skye. But he has this terrible tendency to set himself up for heartbreak, in part because he punishes himself for his past.
Whether you need to like a character, I don't think that's necessary in order to portray him.
The important thing is for the characters to feel real, and to be given the humanity they are due. That granting of humanity is what separates a full portrait from a stereotype.
It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.
Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren't meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.
A person himself believes that all the other portraits are good likenesses except the one of himself.
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
There is no self-portrait of me.
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.