Character Attachment Quotes

After finishing 'The Book of Life,' I needed a bit of a break from the Bishops and de Clermonts. Honestly, I wasn't sure when - or even if! - they would capture all of my attention again.

As a kid, I always loved serialized books. It's the reason why people love 'Harry Potter.' Serialization is amazing. It works in television. It works in film and it works in books. Especially when you're a young kid, you get attached to these characters.

You should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care.

The sci-fi fans in America... they are die-hard. They will follow you to the ends of the Earth. Once they attach themselves to a show and believe in the show and love the characters, they're there forever, and they're unshakeable.

Sometimes I'll be fifty, sixty pages into something and I'll still be calling a character "X." I don't have a very clear idea of who the characters are until they start talking. Then I start to love them. By the time I finish the book, I love them so much that I want to stay with them. I don't want to leave them ever.

It's hard to play a continuing character like Loomis for nearly 11 years and simply wash your hands of him. It seems a pity.

Audiences are just like us as writers - we grow attached to characters. In certain ways you don't want them to change.

I care about Bond and what happens to him. You cannot be connected with a character for this long and not have an interest. All the Bond films had their good points.

Over the years I have forged intimate familial ties with these characters, who are reflections of a portion of myself. Consequently, even a character who appeared only once in a short story waits now in the wings, concealed by the curtain, for his next appearance on-stage. Not one of them has ever broken free of his familial ties with me and disappeared for ever - at least, not within the confines of my heart.

I've always enjoyed shows like 'The X-Files,' where you're on the edge of your seat and you're so invested in these characters.

Every character I've played is like family to me.

Writing is work, but it's also a compulsion, and once you get your characters on paper, you can't abandon them. You have to respond to them.

I worked as an actor for a few years before anything happened, so I'm used to going up for auditions, and then not getting the role. But sometimes I don't read the book of the film, in case I just totally fall in love with it, and then it just becomes an obsession and you want to do it so much because you've completely fallen in love with the story and the characters. And then, if the part doesn't go your way, it's heartbreaking. So, there's a certain amount of distance you have to keep before you can throw yourself in 100%.

Sometimes I pretend not to look at my own characters, because that's like different people getting off with your girlfriend or something.

Writers really do that. We weep over our characters. We are saddened sometimes for days when we say goodbye to a world or a character. They do become our best friends. I've probably spent more time with them over the past 22, 24 years than I have spent with most of the real members of my family.

For the really scary stuff to work at the end you have to fall in love a little bit with the family and want then to be ok. And once you get the audience to buy in on that then they care. They want them to be okay.

You do get fond of your characters. Handing them on is like giving a child to a nanny.

No, I don't miss the character of Akshara, but I cherish it. I will cherish it all my life. Leaving Akshara was a conscious decision of my life, and I was well prepared. When you are well prepared, then you don't miss, but you cherish it for a lifetime.

An audience gets to hang onto the characters for the rest of their lives if they want. I think it's great that the fans do that. It's just not too practical for a man like myself because I have to move on.

I read 'Love in the Time of Cholera' when I was 19, and I still think about the characters.

Darth Maul dies and it's okay. And maybe he'll be picked up later and another actor will play him and that's okay. However if they call me up and they need him for this or that and they want me to play him, then that's okay too. I do actually love this character. I feel strongly about him. I feel badly for him and if there's anything more I can contribute to him or the larger Star Wars mythology I will continue to do so and if my time has come then I will watch as a fan the way I have since I was born.

I really, really loved Elizabeth and Will from 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' I think a lot of people did.

You spend so much time writing a character the way I did with Buddy Baker and then Green Arrow that you start to care about them. And you almost think of them as people, you know?

The initial spark, your affection for the characters, all those things can disappear. It's a perilous thing.

I've never reached the point where I was ready to abandon a series.