Creating Characters Quotes

• Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.

  Cassandra Clare

  Real, Writing, Character

  Interview with Cheryl Brody, www.seventeen.com. March 5, 2008.

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• I go through a whole process with the actors first, building and creating characters, then I encourage them to sort of live in that character when they're in the screen.

  Keenen Ivory Wayans

  Encouragement, Character, Creating

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• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Character, Passion

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• I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.

  Ernest Gaines

  Believe, Character, Creating

  Live chat, cnn.com. May 13, 1999.

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• I understood, through rehab, things about creating characters. I understood that creating whole people means knowing where we come from, how we can make a mistake and how we overcome things to make ourselves stronger.

  Samuel L. Jackson

  Mistake, Mean, Recovery

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• I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 - for albums, anyway.

  David Bowie

  Character, Mean, Thinking

  "David Bowie On The Ziggy Stardust Years: 'We Were Creating The 21st Century In 1971'". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. 2002.

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• Nothing can compare to creating characters and worlds out of thin air with your friends and making a book exactly the way you think it should be made, pure creative freedom, purity of intention, with no boundaries.

  Rick Remender

  Book, Character, Thinking

  Rick Remender (2013). “Black Science #1”, p.31, Image Comics

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• So long as a novelist works selfishly for the pleasure of creating character and situation corresponding to his own illusions, ideals and intuitions, he will always produce something worth while and natural. Directly he takes himself too seriously and begins for the alleged benefit of humanity an elaborate dissection of complexes, he evolves a book that is more ridiculous and tiresome than the most conventional cold cream girl novel of yesterday.

  Willa Cather

  Girl, Book, Character

  Willa Cather (1990). “Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters”, p.59, U of Nebraska Press

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• Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.

  Lily Tomlin

  Character, Creating, Use

  Interview with Maggie Ryan Sandford, www.avclub.com. February 11, 2011.

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• To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake, and if anything I've always steered a bit clear of that kind of thing, because it seems gimmicky to play around with text rather than do the work of telling a story and creating characters.

  Steve Erickson

  Character, Creating, Play

  "Steve Erickson and Zeroville: An Interview with a True American Original". Interview With Jeff VanderMeer, www.amazonbookreview.com. November 27, 2007.

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• When I'm creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of a movie with a soundtrack, and try to transfer that to words.

  Marisha Pessl

  Song, Writing, Character

  "Random Rules: Marisha Pessl" by Andy Battaglia, www.avclub.com. November 14, 2006.

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• I did private study for about a month, five days a week, six hours a day. I came to understand the character in ways that I never would've previous to that. I was so innocent in respect to ways of creating characters.

  Corin Nemec

  Character, Creating, Way

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I think being an activist and an artist is an interesting contradiction, because so often they are at odds with one another. When you write as an artist you have to clean the palate of your own politics in creating characters and activism is kind of the exact opposite.

  Eve Ensler

  Writing, Character, Thinking

  "Avocados and Vaginas". Interview with Joe Saxon, www.thestateofthearts.co.uk. May 16, 2015.

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• I think it is all about creating characters, mixing them up with the stars and the light-years, and coming back to Earth, because we're from this universe. We're not just New York or London; we're stars.

  Benjamin Clementine

  New York, Stars, Character

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The acting is more of a secondary thing for me now. I will be in it, if I'm the best man for the job, but it really is about creating characters and shows.

  Jason Gann

  Jobs, Character, Men

  Source: collider.com

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• I try to get roles that challenge me in what I can do and who I think I can portray. For me, it's about creating characters with really fascinating stories, because that's what I like to watch on TV.

  Tatiana Maslany

  Character, Thinking, Creating

  "Q&A with ‘Orphan Black’ Star Tatiana Maslany". Interview, www.bbcamerica.com. April 8, 2013.

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• The easier you make it look, the more difficult it is. Creating characters out of nothing, and making them interesting - and that's another advice I would give to writers.

  Jackie Collins

  Character, Creating, Giving

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I just love that feeling of being in another world, of creating characters and watching where they go.

  Caroline Leavitt

  Character, Creating, Feelings

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• A big part of filmmaking, and a big part of the power of filmmaking, is creating characters that people fall in love with. So, those things, like the bloopers, create more reality and dimension, and the sense that these are not drawings or shadows, but they are living, breathing, thinking characters. That's the illusion.

  Rob Minkoff

  Falling In Love, Character, Reality

  "Director Rob Minkoff Exclusive Interview THE LION KING 3D". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. September 14, 2011.

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• For modeling, I was always creating characters. I dress like a tomboy. So, when I'd go into a shoot, there'd be all these dresses, and I'd say to myself, 'Okay, this isn't me. It's somebody else. So, who is this person?' Acting is the next level of that.

  Agyness Deyn

  Character, Creating, Acting

  "Agyness Deyn On Her Style, How Modeling Led to Acting, and 'Pusher'". Interview with Ashley Terrill, www.elle.com. October 26, 2012.

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• I had a very happy childhood, but I wasn't that happy a child. I liked being alone and creating characters and voices. I think that's when your creativity is developed, when you're young. I liked the world of the imagination because it was an easy place to go to.

  David Walliams

  Children, Creativity, Character

  "Big Briton" by Rachel Cooke, www.theguardian.com. November 11, 2007.

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• I'm a neurotic New York Jew by birth. Creating characters is second nature to me.

  Len Wein

  Nature, New York, Character

  "Speaking with...LEN WEIN". Interview with Marv Wolfman, www.marvwolfman.com.

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• My role in 'Legally Blonde' was really rewarding, because I had so much fun working on the movie. I've had really rewarding experiences on tiny low budget films that you'll never see but where I had a cool time creating characters as well. I love almost all of the characters I've played.

  Alanna Ubach

  Fun, Character, Creating

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• Both men and women today see marriage not as a way of creating character and community but as a way to reach personal life goals. They are looking for a marriage partner who will 'fulfill their emotional, sexual, and spiritual desires.' And that creates an extreme idealism that in turn leads to a deep pessimism that you will ever find the right person to marry.

  Timothy Keller

  Spiritual, Character, Men

  Timothy Keller (2011). “The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God”, p.23, Penguin

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• I have made a career of creating characters who fight school authority and chomp at the bit to get out into the 'real' world and live their lives, mostly because that's the kind of teenager I was.

  Chris Crutcher

  Teenager, Real, School

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