Eccentric Characters Quotes

As a writer, I tend to be drawn to marginal people - writers, poet-prophets, seers, eccentrics - who embody the deeper ambivalences of their societies and bear deeper witness to their world than the famous figures we are used to celebrating, or demonizing, in our histories.

Yeah, I think A Confederacy of Dunces is probably the perfect New Orleans book.

It's kind of like Silence of the lambs meets Boogey Nights.

My absolute favorite film is Hal Ashby's 'Harold and Maude.'

I don't remember 'Doctor Who' not being part of my life, and it became a part of growing up, along with The Beatles, National Health spectacles, and fog. And it runs deep. It's in my DNA.

I just noticed recently that in one book after another I seem to find an excuse to find some character who, to put it idiotically simply, is allowed to talk crazy.

I suppose I'm what you'd called a character actress, so, often, my characters are quite extreme.

I am now determined to do really weird parts but I think I overdo it in auditions so nobody really trusts me!

A Dirty Shame was a crazy movie. I don't understand that movie at all. I don't get it, but I'd work with John Waters again in a heartbeat. He's just a delight.

I'm not a huge fan of romantic comedies - my taste goes much more to the offbeat and dark. I'd love to sink my teeth into something like Fargo.

When I started making movies about weird people, I knew they were weird, I was infected with irony, and I wanted New York to notice.

A residence of many years in Yorkshire, and an inveterate habit of collecting all kinds of odd and out-of-the-way information concerning men and matters, furnished me, when I left Yorkshire in 1872, with a large amount of material, collected in that county, relating to its eccentric children.

'Portlandia' is the most fun show. When I get a breakdown of what the arc of the story is going to be, I could never in my wildest dreams anticipate the direction.

Playing weird and quirky characters, like those with weird nuances, I find very interesting.

Like the characters in Chekhov, they have no reserves -– you learn the most intimate secrets. You get an impression of a world peopled by eccentrics, of odd professions, almost incredible stupidities, and, to balance them, amazing endurances.

I actually do like playing off-beat people. I think it's more fun.

My favorite book of all time is Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons.

I love the part of Hector as it takes me back to playing eccentric parts. He is a funny character, which is fine by me as I've been playing for laughs for decades now! It's lovely to get a laugh; it's the best thing in the world!

[Jim Belushi] and I have a great thing going, and a really weird, offbeat story. [Living In Peril] is the type of movie that I don't even know if it would be made today. Just a very odd film. But a very fun movie.

To me, the more bizarre the character, the more I'm attracted to it.

I think that when you've got a world in which it's plausible to have a guy dressed as a giant bat and fight evil clowns and other nightmarish freaks, I think the world has to be visually a little more arresting than a regular world.

I've seen a little 'Mighty Boosh.'

That was one of the amazing things about Doctor Who. Considering it is such an enormous charabanc, a centerpiece of international TV, it feels incredibly small when you are actually involved in it. It is very intimate, very small; it feels like a few people messing about with a camera.

When you're talking about Tim Burton, you're talking about a guy that has such a visual sense, an aesthetic, a storytelling style. It's like he's got his own genre.

I deliberately look for colorful people. They're very right for theatre. Theatre has to be theatrical. If you can get color into the accountant, you've got something. Write the whole thing first and then say he's an accountant. That's a very wacky accountant, but so what? Theatricality feeds and challenges the actor, the director, and the designers.