Character Goals Quotes

As actors, you don't actually need to know the future of the character. You just need to know the backgrounds.

You're living with these characters for years and years, you need to have a lock on who they are as people, what they like, what they don't like, what they experience, and what they go through.

Although a novel takes place in the larger world, there's always some drive in it that is entirely personal - even if you don't know it while you're doing it.

The producers felt that 24 would be good for the audience, to really get to know who these 12 and 12 are.

I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probably a character problem.

If we get to shoot the third one, which I'm really hoping we do, the third one's great. There's a big uprising and rebellion, and my character Gale's a big part of that. If we get to shoot that, I'll be very, very pleased.

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.

For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.

I don't know if likeable, pleasant characters have enough conflict for me to want to do them. I admire those people, but I've never been that kind of screen presence who can do nothing. I need to do something.

When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?'

You just play what a writer writes, in terms of what a character chooses to do and how a character chooses to deal with their various relationships.

I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.

When I'm writing a script, I don't worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters - what they need, what they want, what they should do. That's what gets the story going. You can't just have action, you've got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.

In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.

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.

If I'm reading a script, and I'm not buying it, I need to be able to relate to the character on some level, and they need to have more than one dimension. I need to have an idea of what this guy's thinking about when he's taking a shower not on camera. And if I can't picture him taking a shower and getting dressed, then he's not a real person.

While you are improvising, you need to be prepared, and I like to have a sense of who the character is, what she likes to read, where she grew up, where we went to school, and what she has for breakfast, so that when I go to set, I'm free to explore.

When it comes to a character, I make sure that it adds to the plot.

I used to get stuck trying to find the first sentence of a story, then I realised that it was often because I didn't know what problem a character was facing in the story. As soon as I did, I could have the character trying to do something about it or have the problem whack him between the eyes.

I try mainly to just focus on character and what my character's point of view is, with each person, and try to figure out story.

It's the same as any role and I find that you can't lump characters together; because they all have different life experiences, different reasons for being the way they are.

There are times that you have a plot in your head, but then you find that the characters don't want to do that. When you're looking at the story from the outside, you can create whatever twists and turns you want. But when you're writing, you're inside the characters' heads, and you see that they may be motivated to do something different.

I want to give every single character the dimensions and complexity of a main character.

When you're crafting a character, it's good to have a lot of influences.

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.