Patricia Highsmith Quotes

Once we got over the origin story, we could really delve deeper into their lives and characters and angst. So this movie actually has more heart, more humor.

What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors - who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page - is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.

Matt Weiner is very perceptive; there's something about the rhythms and the way people speak that is very authentic to the actor. But there are qualities that are dissimilar. The characters on 'Mad Men' are struggling with pretty profound unhappiness, but I can tell you this is a happy bunch.

I love 'Shattered Glass.' It's one of my favorite movies. I think it's just brilliant.

My wheelhouse is intense characters who have a certain sympathetic streak and also a sense of humor.

I like Rob Morgan in 'Mudbound.' Most of the attention being paid to this movie has focused on Rachel Morrison's cinematography and Mary J. Blige's stiff but intensely stoical performance.

In 'Dear Father,' you will see some remarkable work in terms of the screenplay.

I love Nicole Holofcener's films for their constant duality of humor and emotion and their focus on very real, if flawed, dynamics between funny people.

I don't think that 'No Man's Land' is a comedy. I think that it's a serious film with a good sense of humour.

My role was very good and different in 'Khamoshi.'

Acting-wise, I think I did well in 'Kinatay.' It wasn't talkie, and the acting was intense.

You're not just looking for laughs, but you're trying to do the characters first, and then the laughs come afterwards.

Let's be honest, any show will live or die based on how good the characters are, how good the actors are, how complicated the relationships are, how grounded they are and how much heart they have.

I think it helped that 'Fleabag' had such a dramatic arc to it, even though it was disguised as a comedy.

If somebody has no sense of humor, I think that's a great place to start for British comedy in terms of your character.

If a movie has three decent scenes and a decent character, I think, 'OK, at least they got that guy right.'

Ad Astra' is a visually beautiful film but the story is the interesting part.

It's not easy trying to get into the psyche and behaviour patterns, which are far removed from one's own personality. Some intense characters linger long after it's over on screen.

When you are repeating your co-star, it's good to bring something new to the equation on screen.

Acting is nothing but reacting, so if your co-stars react in a particular way, it does affect your acting as well.

When I did a serious role in 'Koshish,' people said that I didn't look good.

The emotional elevation of the film is due in no small measure to the extraordinarily engaging performances of Anne Bancroft as the wife-mother-mistress, Dustin Hoffman as the lumbering Lancelot, and Katherine Ross as his fair Elaine.

I let the comedy come through the character and just try to make sure that everything is kind of rounded in a truth, in a reality, because that's what I need to make a character work.

So often with beginning writers, the story that they want to start with is the most important story of their life - my molestation, my this, my horrible drug addiction - they want to tell that most important story, and they don't have the skills to tell it yet, so it ends up becoming a comedy. A powerful story told poorly becomes funny, it just makes people laugh behind their hands.

In my own work, humor is necessary, for the reasons stated above, but also because forbidding your characters silliness, absurdity, irony, and vulgarity forbids them aspects of the human experience every bit as universal as sorrow.