Jim Jefferies Quotes

I believe that all novels, ... deal with character, and that it is to express character – not to preach doctrines, sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved ... The great novelists have brought us to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise they would not be novelists, but poet, historians, or pamphleteers.

I don't think you can play a villain with a negative point of view.

I enjoy played flawed men who are pushed to the limit, who make mistakes and then have to recover.

I think that people are fascinated with the stories, with human nature and the dark turns it can take.

It was a struggle to humanize Donald Trump, who was the antagonist in my satirical thriller 'The Day of the Donald'. Of course, I heard from some readers who thought I made Trump too likable.

Villains with a conscience have this sad realization of who they are, and the monster they've become — there's a sense of regret. So at the end of these movies there's a dramatic resonance that really stays with the audience.

I have always wanted to do a book about actors because I think that the death of a character is a tremendously emotional experience.

If you do a character, always make the character with a big question mark. Even if the character is very enigmatic and all over the place, make him always with a question mark, because if you turn a question mark upside down, like they do in South America in Spanish, then it becomes a hook.

I did feel Dr. Cox, the character that I was auditioning for, was too similar to the head of the hospital. He was too arrogant and mean. I approached him kind of like I had a miniature Max sitting on my shoulder. I pictured Max saying, "This guy has got to give love every once in a while. He has to!" I knew there had to be tiny little windows of redemption.

Beware 'good' main characters who have a limited repertory of culturally acceptable feelings, while your evil bastards have a full range of vivid, passionate feelings.

It doesn't matter if it's a drama or a comedy, the need to get the emotion and the character arc across is way harder in something like this so was more of a preparation.

If it's strictly comedy, I like to bring some darkness to it. If it's strictly drama, I always like to lighten it up as well. I like to find some kind of dimension and make my characters human, so that it doesn't feel like a sketch and feels more like a slice of life.

I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy.

That's your job as the actor, to understand the human part of the character, to make it real.

It's so difficult, particularly with an antisocial character. It's much easier if he's already a blank page, but once you've written on him, it's hard to keep him that stripped down.

It depends on the story and the filmmaker. And it depends on the character, and the heart and soul of the person that I see on the page, and if it resonates with something that I think I can summon in myself.

I got good at trying to throw a voice on a character from the very beginning as opposed to like reading it and sitting with it and mulling over it and stuff like that just try to read what it is and then try to put a funny voice to it like as soon as possible and stuff like that. Once you get laughs with your voice then you can start thinking about, you know the physical characteristics and how they might walk or if they stick out their buck teeth or if they wear an afro and stuff like that. I think like finding the voice of the character helps to like build the wardrobe and everything else.

In fact, my favorite Beatles song is "In My Life." And from that, you can gauge that my friends mean so much to me. I love John Lennon, so it's kind of like moody... There's a lot you can gauge from that. As insignificant as it seems, as an actor, it's an interesting way to approach a character.

When you start and you're taking the character seriously, it's going to lead down a variety of paths.

It's important to me that the reader goes on a ride with the characters, that you set context enough to know, "Okay, here's where we are in the world. Now we're just going to go inside this person's head, this guy's heart, this woman's ambitions and take it down to very, very small scale."

Whatever character you're playing you have to complete the entire interior infrastructure, whatever it is - but what gets divulged or what people completely understand depends on the script and what you decide to show. But you have to know it.

I push myself as hard as I can. Sometimes that can be painful and stressful but inthe end it's worth the price... I like to play characters that I can draw from in my own life. I've invested so much of my life into my work that I almost don't have any choice.

As a writer, I haven't delved into dramatic writing. As an actor, I could always, even more so than comedy, do drama. When you do your comedy and your drama, your acting style doesn't change. If it's a comedy, the situations and the characters might be a little funnier, but you're just trying to be honest.

If you think of even Tolstoy or a book like 'Anna Karenina,' you go from character to character, and each section is from the third person perspective of a different character, so you get to see the whole world a little more kaleidoscopically that way. That's traditional narrative manner, and I haven't done a book like that before, but I enjoyed it.

I'm being provided with some emotional ballast by giving me an intimate portrait of one character in particular in contrast to the collective. I'm fortunate that I had very sympathetic readers, but ordinarily - if a book makes you laugh too much, it shifts from "literature" to "entertainment."