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You need to be invested in what happens. The characters are your conduit to the story. Many modern horror films are fun but not frightening because one has not connected with the characters.

The horror aspect, the scary parts, are easy for me. I mean, I can get into that pretty easy, because I get scared. You have to invest yourself in these characters.

If you can relate to what the character's going through, the story can be as ridiculous as possible, and people will relate to it. You can be fearless in your storytelling if you're vigilant about protecting your characters.

You can't form a character without being completely comfortable with who you are as a person.

Over the years, I have been asked to play these sort of scary frenetic characters that express their emotions physically.

In order to inhabit a character, you've got to embrace and empathise with them.

When you're hiding behind a character all the time, as soon as you have to be yourself, you feel kind of terrified.

For me, being able to be vulnerable is difficult, but it's just something that I feel comfortable doing. I need to fully understand why, the thought-process behind the character and I have to believe it. That comes from a lot of preparation.

At the core, I try to write characters who are real people with real insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams, which is why hopefully readers can identify with them.

When I was acting, I got trained in creating a character as a three-dimensional person. If you're doing it right you should be able to draw an audience into the character's world and make them feel their fears.