Character Origin Quotes

I wouldn't mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian, or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don't see any reason to change that.

Every ongoing character has to start somewhere.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

Most of the names in my books have secondary meaning. Sometimes they foreshadow; sometimes they tell you about the character's origin or back story.

It's exciting to originate Jessica Jones. There's obviously more freedom in that versus playing a well known character.

'Dexter,' while the pilot shares moments with the novel that created the character of Dexter, they completely abandoned the book from that moment on.

I don't ever really know where I get my characters from.

The character of Rosie is based on a woman who used to live in the same apartment building I lived in many years ago. She's taken on a life of her own, of course.

Of course, I have Gene Roddenberry to thank for the creation of Barclay.

Barrabas came to us by the sea.

Most Americans don't even know that Minnie Driver is English or that Catherine Zeta Jones is Welsh, but people are reminded every time 'ER' is shown that I'm the British Dr. Corday.

I read the 'Nightflyers' novella and knowing that it was something that had been written by George R.R. Martin, knowing how those stories kind of go, I was really curious to see what happened to my character in the source material.

My characters come from a good place.

Ever since I began writing my Junie B. Jones series, people have been assuming that the character is based on me when I was a little girl. The fact is, though, that Junie B. and I have very little in common.

I was pretty nervous when I met Robert Kirkman. It's very strange to meet someone who created you. Andrea [ from The Walking Dead] is still very much alive and kicking, seven years into the comic book, so to meet Robert and be like, "Hi, I'm Andrea," I had to just hope that he was happy with the decision.

But I don't know. Pee-wee just kind of popped out one day, pretty much fully fleshed-out and fully formed.

Nagini should be played by an Asian. Scriptwriter J.K. Rowling probably searched for an Asian actress because she researched the origin of Nagini.

In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them.

That's the way it happens - some characters you set out to use, some are happy accidents. As long as it works, it doesn't really matter how you got them.

I read Spider-Man, and that's how I knew about Wilson Fisk.

Snoopy didn't start off being a Beagle. It's just that 'beagle' is a funny word.

The 'Billy On The Street' persona is truly inspired by who I was as a child - obviously not having an adult perspective on the world.

Comics have years to explain this stuff, and in a movie, you have to focus on one thing. So it's about kind of streamlining, I think. Some of the most successful origin films actually have a narrower focus.

I talked with Quentin about where the character came from, and he told me Kansas City. I don't know how somebody talks from Kansas City, so I made him from New York.

Well you know, the comic strip [Doctor Strange]... yeah, was an Asian man, in fact, a very ancient Tibetan man living on the top of a mountain. The film script that I was given wasn't an Asian man, so I wasn't asked to play an Asian man - I was asked to play an ancient Celtic person.