I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We, people, are so very, very complicated that no matter how well drawn a fictional character is, they can't get anywhere near as complex as a real person.
We're not one thing, as human beings, so any character that is written uni-dimensional, that's just a shallow character with shallow writing and shallow acting.
I shy away from plot structure that depends on the characters behaving in ways that are going to eventually be explained by their childhood, or by some recent trauma or event. People are incredibly complicated. Who knows why they are the way they are?
I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.
I think anybody would be hard pressed not to relate to at least one of the characters, because there's so many different multifaceted people populating this crazy world.
I think I'm drawn to characters with complexity or who are under duress in some way and have some conflict going on.
We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.
That's one of the things that I've loved about 'Spider-Man' and Marvel in general. The characters all have dimension.
You know, we have to take these characters - who, granted, have their separate personalities but, on a lot of levels, are pretty two-dimensional - and make them into people with flaws, with insecurities.
If your characters are two-dimensional and your plot uncompelling, it won't matter how incredibly detailed and believable your fantasy world might be.