Quotes About Interesting Characters

#1. Arthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected. He was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having.

T.H. White

#2. My characters were ... rebelling against something ... My own bad writing. I wouldn't do for my characters what they needed for me to do - be courageous enough in my writing to make them interesting.

John Scalzi

#3. Everyone loves the seventies because that's when movies were character-based, and you saw great characters and you saw very interesting filmmaking. There are interesting movies being made now, but it's harder and harder to make them.

Justin Bartha

#4. Make your characters interested in something. Striving for something. In need of something. Good at something. This will make them likeable and interesting.

James Franco

#5. Up until the age of 12, I went to dog shows every weekend. Mum showed beagles. It's a really competitive and eclectic world filled with characters who wear interesting outfits - similar to 'Toddlers & Tiaras,' but with dogs.

Rebel Wilson

#6. When I watch cop shows, I really enjoy them because you can really follow the story and get involved, and the characters are always really interesting.

Vicky McClure

#7. Ultimately, if the character is interesting and you said that before: It doesn't matter if it's likable. That's really what it is. If they interest you. If the context in which the characters are set interests you then I think then you're pulled in by it.

Christian Cooke

#8. Many of us would not make terribly interesting characters in a novel.

Claire Wingfield

#9. To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

Greg McHugh

#10. A good way to never run out of ideas? Surround yourself with interesting people, then think about how you can make them into characters.

B.A. Gabrielle

#11. Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me. I play these guys, but I'm not like them. I've been accused of bein.

Val Kilmer

#12. I have always liked family-type dramas; I just think the dynamics in families make for some really interesting characters.

Gina Bellman

#13. Sometimes even when the book is over I don't know who's good and who's bad. It's really more interesting, I think, to write about gray characters than it is to write about black and white.

Harlan Coben

#14. The characters I tend to play are a little more interesting than the standard heroes. Romantic leads can be a little more straightforward, I guess. But it just seems to be the parts I get, I don't know what that says about me. I enjoy interesting characters and interesting people, I suppose.

Iwan Rheon

#15. I just love to act. It's my favorite thing to do in the world, and what keeps it interesting, to me, is the creative challenge. So, different kinds of characters, that's what I just love to do.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

#16. I always think that the most interesting characters are those that are trying to cover something or those that have some sense of bravado or composure.

Emily Blunt

#17. There's a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they're interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they're just a mess. It's good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.

Ellen Pompeo

#18. I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission.

Elizabeth Meriwether

#19. Prison makes an interesting context for so many different characters to come together. You get to see what lines get drawn between people.

Yael Stone

#20. The most crucial thing is to learn the craft: how to string sentences together, how to make your dialogue sound like real people, how to properly pace a story, how to develop interesting characters.

Stephen Coonts

#21. It would drive me crazy if I picked roles with the goal of being a leading man. You never know what you're getting into when you sign onto a project, and more times than not, the characters that are close to the leading man are more interesting and more fun to play.

Jesse Plemons

#22. For me, the performance was always playing different people. And so when I got older, was no longer the romantic leading movie star, it became more and more interesting for me, the characters I played, you know?

Michael Caine

#23. It feels like I'm starting to come into my own in terms of where I want to go artistically, toward more complicated, interesting characters.

Jessica Alba

#24. Well, the years from 10 to 20, when your body, mind and everything is like changing every five minutes, can be pretty torturing. And most of the interesting characters, I think, are somewhat tortured or torturous. I'm 20 now, so I'm only just an adult.

Anna Paquin

#25. The trap in Hamlet is he's the most passive of Shakespeare's characters. He's not a Richard III, not out there taking a lot of action. It's a lot of asides and soliloquies where he's wrapped in angst, and that's not a very interesting character.

Kurt Sutter

#26. There is an interesting idea: almost everybody's fascinated by the perpetrator of a crime; very few people study what happens to people for the rest of their lives, and how it affects not only that particular character but other characters around him as well.

Clint Eastwood

#27. No characters in 'Stay Close,' including the leads, are black and white. I want them to be grey. I think that makes for a much more interesting reading experience, something that will stay with you a little bit longer.

Harlan Coben

#28. What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.

Jonathan Miller

#29. I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race.

Kerry Washington

#30. Put your characters where they are the most interesting.

James D. Macdonald

#31. Children are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it's sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.

Abbas Kiarostami

#32. I've grown up well, partly because there weren't great girls' literature - Nancy Drew, maybe - but there weren't things. So there was Huck Finn and "Spin And Marty." The boys characters were interesting and you lived through them when you're watching it.

Meryl Streep

#33. I would much rather read a book about Ty Cobb, who was quite possibly a sociopath. It makes for more interesting copy. Some of the most memorable characters in literature were villains.

Jonathan Weeks

#34. When I think about [characters], I like to think of them in their relationships to each other. In the same way, I think that's how humans are ultimately defined. We are our relationships to one another. And a lot of what's interesting about us happens in the context of other people.

John Green

#35. With action films, it's great if it's not just driven by action, but by a good story and interesting characters, as well. Though, there's nothin' like kicking butt!

Dwayne Johnson

#36. 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

#37. The characters that aren't what they seem to be or women who are stronger than people give them credit for or characters you underestimate, I always think are really interesting because there are so many possibilities with them.

Valorie Curry

#38. I, as a fan of numerous TV shows and movies, know that people mess up. The characters that we love are not always going to act in the ways that we want them to. That's what makes them interesting.

Rita Volk

#39. The thing I respond to the most is just great writing, interesting characters. I like to think that there is something fun about playing a character that has a lot of authority in her own life.

Marin Ireland

#40. In New York, I much prefer playing older because as characters get older, they get more interesting.

Danny Pintauro

#41. Try to get your characters into interesting trouble. Allow your characters to misbehave. Let them stay out after 11.

Charles Baxter

#42. From its beginning, fan fiction has been written mostly by women. Originally, this was because of a dearth of interesting female characters in conventional sci-fi.

Russell Smith

#43. Well, I always try to look at my characters as being better than I am. That's one of the reasons I guess I became an actor - because you get to create a persona that's bigger or better or more interesting than your own.

Bruce Davison

#44. My process for determining which eras I'd write about was to just read history books that gave a really broad overview of Chinese history. And when I came across a historical figure or a historical incident that was especially interesting to me, ideas for characters and stories would surface.

Susan Barker

#45. I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting places to set my books. But as the characters come first, who they are will usually dictate where a book is set.

Kate Walker

#46. This may sound like a copout, but character and plot are equally important to me. I don't think the reader can engage uninteresting, compelling characters. Similarly, even interesting characters can't salvage a plot that's boring or that's riddled with holes.

Ed Duncan

#47. Writers must be fair and remember even bad guys (most of them, anyway) see themselves as good - they are the heroes of their own lives. Giving them a fair chance as characters can create some interesting shades of gray - and shades of gray are also a part of life.

Stephen King

#48. I love people like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, people who create and write their own stuff - especially when there's just not enough cool, interesting characters out there.

Debby Ryan

#49. The script for what would eventually become my first graphic novel, 'Cairo,' sort of came to me in kind of a bolt of lightning within 24 hours of having moved to that city. Just a jumble of characters and narratives and interesting things that I was seeing and experiencing for the first time.

G. Willow Wilson

#50. You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men ... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.

Tobin Bell

#51. What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray.

Mike Birbiglia

#52. My brand is good storytelling. I really want [my company] Hillman Grad Productions to be associated with great stories, interesting characters; things that are three-dimensional and feel honest.

Lena Waithe

#53. What is their potential for evil; what is their potential for wickedness? That's the only time that those characters become interesting to watch.

Jennifer Beals

#54. The Swords were still interesting but by then a cast of characters had started to appear and go on from book to book, and other things about the world began to feel constricting. And there were other things I wanted to do, so I closed the series up and stopped it.

Fred Saberhagen

#55. I leapt eagerly into books. The characters' lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own.

Ruta Sepetys

#56. When you read a fantasy novel part of the fun is getting to explore a new world. Everyone knows that. But I believe the same is true about characters. You can explore interesting people in the same way that you explore a town or a culture.

Patrick Rothfuss

#57. I just want to work with good filmmakers and do good projects that mean something to me and play interesting characters. That's really it.

Dylan O'Brien

#58. I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

Jenny Slate

#59. I've always been interesting in characters that challenge people and who are not always that easy to like.

Julian McMahon

#60. I don't keep a record of the parts I've played, and I don't compare characters, but maybe I should? I could construct a graphic that grades badness and madness levels? Interesting idea.

James Frain

#61. If, at the end of the day, I can look back and see pictures of all the characters I've played, and there's a smorgasbord of weirdos and interesting, odd, different characters, I'd be so happy.

Joel Edgerton

#62. Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail.

Brendan Gleeson

#63. Travel provided many interesting experiences, but perhaps the most useful lesson I learned was that I really had no proficiency for learning the thousands of characters of the written Chinese language.

Eric Allin Cornell

#64. It's funny how the ruthless, murderous gangster has really been romanticized by the media. I mean, I grew up watching the 'Godfathers' and 'Scarface,' and they were the coolest. They're just really interesting stories with great characters. They're rock stars.

Elena Satine

#65. There is no more interesting place in the world to meet characters than a movie set.

Will Rogers

#66. There are a lot of actors who will sit here and talk to you about characters - 'He does this, and she's a really interesting character because she does this.' I'm not like that at all. I'm not an actory actor.

Zooey Deschanel

#67. 'The Hunger Games' for me is I love the books so much and the character and the story were incredible. That's kind of the game plan is just do really interesting stories with interesting characters.

Josh Hutcherson

#68. To my way of thinking, whether it's a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you've got to care about the characters. You've got to understand the characters and you've got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you're half-way home.

Stan Lee

#69. To me idealized characters are so boring to play, especially having grown up in the classical theater. That's a great experience, but as a woman, especially, you've played a lot of idealized characters. So when you've got someone who has weaknesses as well as strengths, that's interesting.

Annette Bening

#70. I want to play some really good, interesting, crazy characters. I want to take some chances. I want to take risks. I want to have fun and just keep working. That's all I really care about.

Andie MacDowell

#71. To me, part of the fascinating profession of acting is to participate in all these strange situations, to try to understand all these interesting characters, fictitious or real, their human nature ... It's extraordinarily fascinating.

Max Von Sydow

#72. Remember that a good football novel has to have the same ingredients as any other good novel: drama, convincing and interesting characters, a strong story-line, and some kind of magic in the writing.

Mal Peet

#73. One of the most interesting female characters I've written about was Meg Riddoch, the lead character in 'The Thompson Gunner'.

Nick Earls

#74. The characters that I want to play are interesting women. I don't care if they're good women or bad women or vulnerable women or women with a lot of faults or women that we dislike intensely who are malicious.

Gwendoline Christie

#75. The work evolves when you get another part, and then you're getting called on to solve difficult characters, to inject a note of humanity into them. It's more interesting for me to do that than to stand around and be sunny.

Hope Davis

#76. It's always interesting researching characters and as I get older and the more that I work in this business, I do more and more of it because I realize how important it is.

Max Thieriot

#77. I like when people question if the characters are really villains or protagonists. These types are very interesting to write about.

Jack Higgins

#78. Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol.

John L'Heureux

#79. I don't know if it's that the scripts are evolving or just that I'm getting older, but the characters become more interesting as you get older because you've lived more life at different stages. You've loved; you've lost; you have more of that journey.

Matt Barr

#80. Sometimes people are like, 'Do you want to play strong women?' I don't have to play strong women in order to feel like a strong woman myself, but I do feel it's important to play characters that are complex and interesting and believable.

Bryce Dallas Howard

#81. Sometimes, the smaller roles in movies can be the most interesting. If you only take the stance that you'll only play central characters in movies, you'll find yourself not being able to indulge in that morally grey terrain that makes support characters so rich and interesting.

Joel Edgerton

#82. I don't want to do an action movie, because I've acted in them, and they're so boring to do, because they're so technical. The headache of that is daunting. But, if it were an action movie with really interesting characters, how great would that be?

Tony Goldwyn

#83. My favorite thing about acting is that I can play all kinds of different people. Frankly, I don't consider myself a very interesting person, so the characters I play are usually much more fun.

Nathan Kress

#84. [Ed Grimley] lives in a retirement home in New Jersey. It's called the Retirement Home in New Jersey for Characters Who Were Interesting in the '80s for About an Hour. He's there with the Whiners, Gumby and Jon Lovitz's 'That's the ticket' guy.

Martin Short

#85. People who act against their own best interests are interesting characters.

Paul Schrader

#86. If a novelist has created vivid characters, interesting relationships, settings the reader can easily imagine, and intriguing stories, a screenwriter has loads to work with. The challenge comes with deciding what to cut and what to keep.

Seth Grahame-Smith

#87. None of the actor methods ever discussed what it would be like to play a character on film for over a decade, and what it must be like to return to a character and imagine the time off-screen, which is interesting. There's something as an actor that I enjoy about evolving characters.

Vin Diesel

#88. We lead more interesting lives than we think. We are characters in plots, without the compression and numinous sheen. Our lives, examined carefully in all their affinities and links, abound with suggestive meaning, with themes and involute turnings we have not allowed ourselves to see completely.

Don DeLillo

#89. Russian directors, we are shooting the same streets. The same things. Tom Jacobson has a fresh eye and found very interesting and very cool locations and angles and characters.

Timur Bekmambetov

#90. If you're doing something on an interesting scale that involves an entire universe of characters, one way to unite them is to have them all undergo a common experience, and there is something at Christmas that unites everybody. It already sets a stage within the stage.

Shane Black

#91. I have been extremely proactive in putting myself up for characters that may have been meant to specifically be Caucasian. You bring an interesting angle to the character that isn't written.

Archie Panjabi

#92. If the would-be writer studies people in their everyday lives and discovers how to make his characters in their quieter moods interesting to his readers, he will have learned far more than he can ever learn from the constant presentation of crises.

Vera Brittain

#93. It's an interesting plot device to enter in a third wheel - it always helps raise the stakes for all parties involved. But often, those characters can be one-dimensional.

Michael Trucco

#94. I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.

Jeff Abbott

#95. I naturally gravitate to darker characters. Gotham. Batman's suit. It's all dark; he's very interesting. It all comes from his builds and guts.

David Finch

#96. I really love doing indie projects, I think the characters that are available in indie games especially, like a lot of the indie games I've done, have been really rich interesting characters for someone of my vocal range.

Ashly Burch

#97. I think that's what makes characters interesting - when you paint a person into a corner, and you see what they do to get out of that corner. It's what makes drama drama.

Andre Holland

#98. 'Deity' will be a compelling and exciting thriller with complex and interesting characters. A neo-realistic style to story and images will take the audience deep into Calcutta's many different levels. A fascinating clash between American and Indian culture.

Niels Arden Oplev

#99. It's not all 'Jane Eyre' out there. In her sweet, honorable, slightly passive-aggressive way, Jane was as perfect as a protagonist can get while remaining interesting; in fact, she's one of my favorites. But most characters are more morally ambiguous.

Susan Isaacs

#100. As a writer, I try to appeal to the 'elusive boy audience' the same way I try to appeal to everyone: I do the very best I can to create interesting characters, addictive plots, tons of conflict, believable settings, unexpected plot twists, intriguing beginnings, and satisfying endings.

Marie Lu