Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.
To me, characters are at the heart of great literature.
What always leads me in terms of my movies are characters.
A lot of times in movies, especially in sequels, the characters become caricatures and just sort of improv machines and joke machines, rather than people you can actually connect to.
In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing. It makes sense. But I had always admired filmmakers who made movies that didn't sound like them at all.
I like movies about people and movies with characters; that's what I'm drawn to as a person who likes to create these characters within the story, but I like it all, really.
Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.
Other kinds of movie stars, it's a different thing, they bring their persona to the part and that's what people like to see, and they are not really transforming in terms of their character.
Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.
Any fiction writer who assumes that a character is typical no doubt runs the risk of stumbling into cliche and stereotype.