You're doing it to make the character as specific as possible, so that it's a specific individual that you're talking about, not that whole class of people.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.
That's the way I will write characters, put a fair amount of myself in them, and then everyone else who was like that person, I will pick and choose.
When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances.
You can't form a character without being completely comfortable with who you are as a person.
There's no point in using someone else's characters if you're going to turn them into your own vision. You have to be loyal to that person's worldview and sensitive to what they would and wouldn't have done with their characters, and how explicit or inexplicit they would've been.
Everyone can do a character the way they want to do it, unless the director tells them not to, which isn't very common. I like to do my characters, if it's not specific in the script, as myself.
I think the idea is to try and understand everything about the characters and where the character is coming from, from their point of view, why they say what they do. And not, 'Oh, but I would never say that. Why does the character say that?' But then making it as personal as possible.
Character roles only indicate that they're very different from who you are as a person, and for me, it's fun hiding behind characters that are so unlike who I am.
I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations about groups of people.
You can perform all kind of characters but you cannot change what people feel for you.