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You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

Part of the success of the show is that the audience sees themselves in the characters, becomes the characters. The more they inhabit the characters, the more they see.

Supporting characters add depth to a story, and great actors leave their imprint with the audience.

Audiences like to be challenged and to be actively involved and try to guess an outcome.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

Creating a character is about what they look like. The look speaks volume to the audience.

The reader is going to imprint on the characters he sees first. He is going to expect to see these people often, to have them figure largely into the story, possibly to care about them. Usually, this will be the protagonist.

I always want the audience to identify with my character in some way. I mean, sometimes you'll get characters that aren't very identifiable. Sometimes you can't relate to your character at all. I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment.

A lot of readers want characters to behave in a responsible way, or they want to understand the characters' dilemma and act, in a way, on their behalf.

First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible.