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When you write, you hear the characters speaking to you as you take dictation from what they say. And obviously, they had particular personalities when you hear them.

I think every writer will tell you that their characters are always partially themselves: who I am and what I've experienced. It's always there in part of my characters.

I always talk about my characters like they're real people.

I try to talk about things I know about. But my characters are more of a combination of people or how I imagine people would feel.

I think the idea is to try and understand everything about the characters and where the character is coming from, from their point of view, why they say what they do. And not, 'Oh, but I would never say that. Why does the character say that?' But then making it as personal as possible.

Characters are often revealed by the ways they misapprehend others.

I usually look at things like that from an audience perspective first, then have a closer look at the specific character they're talking about me for.

When I do a character, I try to base it on someone I have met or an experience I've had.

I think character is very much a product of where you live, who you are, what is happening in that time of your life, and I'm interested in those pressures, those forces. A political context, a social context, really determines if not who people are then how they treat one another and what they say, how they speak.

Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it's just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.