Viggo Mortensen Quotes

This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.

In the time between when you first read a script and are offered the role and the time when you begin to shoot, I really love putting in the time and work on that and getting a solid backstory to a character and researching all that I can about what that person does for a vocation or their upbringing or where they're from.

The work that I do with all of my characters is have some sense of where they come from. I kind of create my own story for myself. What's going on with my parents? Are they alive? Or family - do I have children? Do you see those things or not?

There's nothing more liberating about starting with something that is not written. You pretty much create the history of that character and that character's life story.

I've got to write about my character every day. I've got to find out where he lives, what bus he catches to school, and stuff like that. You've got to know every little thing about him so when you do it, it feels natural.

You always have to create the character from the ground up.

I'm about my characters.

Usually when I'm trying to establish character, I try and find out where they live.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

Preparation is really important for actors; they need to know who they are, where they're from, and the experiences up to the point that we make the film.

When you play a character, there are choices you have to make about the past, the present, the future, etc. You have to make those choices on your own a lot.

The first thing I look at with a project isn't who's directing, whether it's a big film; it's the character and whether I want to tell her story.

Detailing and backstories are so important; only they draw you into the life of a character.

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

Plot and character are virtually the same thing.

Because characters are your creations, you are the one who ultimately gets to decide their fate.

I know all actors are different, but I've never sat down and asked the writers, 'Where are we headed? Am I good or bad?'

I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.

Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character.

Every single film I've done, it's about the character.

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

I love to see how a character unfolds off the page in a project. I don't always know how the character is going to turn out, even with the script being there. It's not always clear where that character is going to take me. Or where I will take them.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.