Alan Ball Quotes

I wouldn't put myself forward to do a film like 'Changeling' if I thought I couldn't pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

When the characters are believable and endearing, action scenes, for example, make an impact. Otherwise, the audience gets no kick out of action. The biggest strength of 'MCA' is that its characters are real.

If an actor can emotionally bond with the viewer, then it does not matter if he is handsome or ordinary looking.

If you can't laugh at your own characters, or shed a tear for them, or even get angry at one of them, no one else will either.

I feel like my responsibility as an actor is to make characters as compelling and believable as possible.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

As an actor, the biggest compliment you can get, in my book is for someone to believe that you're the character.

What really motivates you to try to work things out as an actor is in large part fear, because you want to get into that narrative and bring the audience along.

You can write and write, but if you don't have someone who can nail that character, it's never going to live.

You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.

I have to believe in the character to perform it.

I think that's something that people feel that I do really well; I don't mind it, because ultimately I think the characters I play move people, and who wouldn't want to move people?

If you care about the characters, then whatever scary thing happens to them, you feel it even more.

If I can get the audience to connect with the characters emotionally - and they love who they are, they love the larger-than-life situation that they're in, but most of all get the audience invested in the characters - then I always feel like I can sort of put them in the most outrageous circumstances, and the audience is okay to go with that.

If it's a 50-seat theater, I am neurotic about whether I'm doing an honest performance. Sometimes I walk away happy enough with it. You know, it can always be better, but sometimes I'll walk away distraught, feeling like I missed the pulse of the character that evening.

The day the audience feel they are watching Parvathy instead of the character, that would be me failing as an actor.

What makes an audience watch something and care about the characters is the emotional life of the characters.

I think that acting involves doing your job so well that you are able to help the viewer identify with the character.

One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments.

One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.

So many roles for women demand that you make the audience fall in love with you or sympathise with you.

My first, big, silly role at school was as Arthur Crocker-Harris in Rattigan's 'The Browning Version,' where my job was to make school-masters' wives weep with recognition.

I tend to play characters that I can infuse with certain kinds of humour. Even the baddest guy can be funny in his own particular way. I want the audience to engage with the character on some deeper level so that they leave the cinema still thinking about him.

It doesn't matter how beautifully a film is photographed. The acting tells your story. It's what people relate to. If you don't believe the characters, it doesn't work.

People like the comedy more when they care about the characters.