Lauren Shuler Donner Quotes

I much prefer following a lead character that is doing morally questionable things. How much do you get on board? Do like that? Do you hate it? Does it matter?

No matter how extreme things get, it still has that ring of truth about it that backs the characters - even though they're despicable and what they're doing isn't right you still care for their fate.

If you cared enough about your characters, what happened to them was interesting... it's important to care about them, about who they are and what they do...I don't really care whose side they are on, and they can be monstrous on the outside or, worse, on the inside, but you still have to want to spend time with them.

Maybe I'm perverse, but the question of "rooting" for a character, or setting out to write a character for whom other people will root, has never had anything to do with why I read or write fiction. As long as the writing and story remain alive, intense, invigorating, provoking, the characters can be as demonic or saintly as the author wants.

When a character does something appalling but you still want to root for them, I find that the most exciting challenge to play, if you can pull it off. You're not supposed to like it, but you can't help it.

This high-end, novelistic form of TV, you know, is just peppered with despicable people who do marvelous things and marvelous people who do despicable things.

I think the parts that I played sort of broke the mould in terms of - you know, I played grey characters, the bad girl with a good heart, there was a good reason for her to be bad.

It's always good to be able to identify with the characters that you're watching and not just easily put them in the bad box or the good box. They're real people that you care about, and you invest in their journey.

I talk about Breaking Bad being the most brilliant show ever, and even minor characters have subtle nuances and are fully drawn.

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.

In my opinion, visual effects are great when it compliments a good story, and action is great when it compliments a good story, but just to have them for the sake of having them, it gets a little boring, especially if you're talking a TV series. At least with a movie that's an hour and a half to two hours, you see it and you're impressed, and then you're out. With a series, if it's only that, week after week after week, there's nothing there to bring you back. You have to get invested in the characters and care about them and want to follow them.

The most interesting heroes have a bit of villainy to them, and the most interesting villains have a certain bit of heroism in them. I think (Alan Shore) intends to do the right thing, but his view of the world is very different so, to get to the right place, he sometimes takes a path that goes through a very dark forest.

The great thing about Burgess's work is the dichotomy of making the hero or anti-hero an immoral man. And that's what makes it interesting. Because, you know, you are sucked into kind of like this guy.

I mean, I love Walter White.

The thing that I love about 'Scandal' is every character, it's not clear if they're good or bad. Everyone is both good and bad.

I get the feeling that audiences have become mature and they understand that not every character is in black or white. There can be grey shades to it.

I would relish a role that really shows a bit of background into how the bad guy got the way he is... a little more complex than cackling behind a hooded cloak.

We're all the heroes of our own stories. So, when I am inside the head of a character who would otherwise be considered a villain, I have a great deal of affection for that character and I'm trying to see the world and the events through their eyes.

It's the challenge of trying to evoke any kind of sympathy for a role that ordinarily we would say, "Oh, this is a bad guy" and dismiss him.

I've always been drawn to dark, disturbing characters.

When you're writing a story or an actor playing a role, you should never think of your characters as heroes or villains. You have to think of them as people first.

What the writers do, and we hopefully can bring to life, is that they present characters who, on the surface, aren't always heroic and their acts aren't always devoid of selfishness.

The anti-hero or hero usually has a journey or quest so they are interesting as you find out what's going to happen, what they are looking for. What are they trying to do? Sometimes what they do is heroic or comes with a price or sacrifice or maybe the way they do things isn't so great and that's when they become anti-heroes. But the journey of an anti-hero combined with a good story done well is always worthwhile.

I usually make up stories for my kids.I like to tell them stories and make up any kind of crazy to involve them in characters. The kind of fairytales I don't like are the ones with happy endings, where there's just good and evil and things are perfect. I think when there's a good story for children it has a moral tale, so that's what I try to teach my kids.

You never want to play too vampiric or generically evil, so you look for emotions or character traits that you can relate to.