Jay Roach Quotes

I'm a character-driven director, and I tend to fall in love with the characters in my movies and TV shows.

I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story.

Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.

I don't really think in terms of genre, I think in terms of story and character.

I think if you want to make a good sports movie, you've got to cut down on the sports. You have to make it about people. You can't try to impress people with your knowledge and the X and O's and all the details and the technicalities.

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

I like characters where there's something going on and something to make him real. If you find out what somebody cares about, all of a sudden, the whole world opens up.

It's much easier for me to think in terms of character movement and emotion and story rather than, 'What are some wacky hijinks we can throw together?'

I really care more about the human drama than I do the thriller stuff.

I try to employ a different strategy for each story. Often, I'll have a specific look in mind before I even have the story to go with it. I'm not so much interested in forcing the issue of reader identification through various graphic tricks. I'm more interested in creating specific characters that resonate with my own particular inner struggles.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.

That's been my main interest for the last 15 years, is to really make sure the story and the characters take precedence over everything else, and that I give them everything I can to make them exist as actual people.

A lot of people think that they are really cool because they don't outline. In my writing group, they would say, "I will never outline. I let the characters take me." C'mon, man - I outline the story, but it's only like one page. It's a list of possible reversals in the story, like things where everything will just change because of this certain reveal or this certain action. Then I start really digging into the character because, to me, I don't care what the story is.

The endings for all my characters seem sufficiently human and messy for me to feel comfortable with them. In some ways they have only moved an inch, but sometimes an inch is a great distance.

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

I'm not method or anything like that, but sometimes you get the scenes and you're like 'Really, Damon [Lindelof]? More of this? Can I have one scene where it's a walk in the park?' But he doesn't do that. He puts every character through their paces.

I pride myself on doing character-driven movies and, when my movies have worked, it's been because of the right casting and the right character, and it just clicks.

What's the trick to writing a great female character? Make her human.

For big Hollywood movies, I'm on the more character-driven side of the equation. So, TV is a natural place for me to be because you've got no choice, but to be character-driven.

I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way.

I never really approach any project or story thinking of themes first or what a certain character 'represents.' Maybe other writers do, but for me, it just starts with the characters and a certain emotion I want to convey. It usually isn't until I get deeper into a book and look back a bit that I start to see the themes, etc.

The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour.

The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.