If you keep the situations real, the characters' behavior will be real and honest, too. If they're suddenly robbing a bank and exchanging snappy dialogue, well, I wouldn't even know how to write that.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In real life, people are constantly saying one thing and doing another, but if you write your characters that way, the story becomes too hard to follow.
If the characters are acting true to themselves, then that chemistry and suspense will flow.
To know how a character will behave in any given situation is a necessity and a gift.
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.
My approach is always the same. I try to be as honest as possible. Find the real honesty and humanity in the character because even a fictional character is supposed to feel real. And my job is to find that reality and bring it to the screen.
Invite characters of surprising and moral character, or at least those who grapple with what is right or those who make decisions that shock.
You have to suspend disbelief a little bit to buy into your situation and to the story and to how the character will react. You have to tweak your credibility a little bit, is basically what it comes down to.
With any character I have played, there's infinite possibilities for how they might behave, depending on who they are talking to or how they react to things.
There is a difference between legitimate issues of character - someone's behavior - and the issue of whether someone who has done something wrong in their life, now because of those mistakes, can't talk about what is the right thing to do.
I've found I can plunge the characters into whatever absurd, awful situation, and readers will follow as long as the writer makes them seem like 'real people.'