Best scene & character Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Yeah, what happened was Universal wanted one of the characters to be nice so they chose me so there was a scene where the girl was tied to the bed and I let her go.”

Character Wanted Girl Nice Happened Scene Bed Universal Yeah Tied Being Nice Let Her Go

Author:Matthew McGrory

“I don't really ever think about whether or not I like the characters I'm playing. I'm more into the minutiae of their behaviour or what they're doing in a certain scene.”

Thinking Character Certain Scene Behaviour Minutiae

Author:Mary-Louise Parker

“I love Charlie, Billy Burke's character. Writing for him is so spectacular, he's so funny and wry and every scene he's in he just takes. There's a scene in 'Eclipse' where Bella tells him she's a virgin, and it's the funniest, most awkward scene I've ever seen on film.”

Writing Character Film Scene Awkward Virgins Spectacular Charlie Eclipse Wry

Author:Melissa Rosenberg

“Characters can become boring. That's what's tricky about television. It goes on and on - you're playing this same character for five seasons and it gets easy to fall into just walking on the set and assuming you know how to play a scene.”

Knows Play Character Fall Easy Know How Five Television Goes On Walking Scene Seasons Assuming Boring Tricky

Author:John Slattery

“But I've always felt that the less you know about an actor's personal life, the more you can get involved in the story in which he's playing a character. And I don't like to see movies where you know about everything that happens behind the scenes. I can't engage in the story if I know what's going on in the actor's head.”

Ifs Knows I Can Character Stories Happens Actors Felt Behinds Involved Scene Personal Life Get Involved Behind The Scenes

Author:Eric Stoltz

“First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the character you're playing.”

Knows Firsts Ends Enough Character Might Lasts Film Cases Pieces Materials Scene Flow Scripts Extremes

Author:Jean Stapleton

“I've learned a lot about stage-managing for illustration. Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image. I've also learned to making big-scale design decisions early.”

Sometimes Character Bigs Decision Stage Design Scene Scales I've Learned Illustration Overcrowding

Author:Scott Westerfeld

“All of the disparate books on my list contain characters, scenes or voices that linger long past the last page of their stories.”

Long Book Character Stories Lasts Past Voice Scene Pages Lists

Author:Maureen Corrigan

“Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts - including my own - where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: “This is where the novel should actually start.” A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it.”

Feels Should Two Character Stories Moving My Own Novel Cutting Crazy Information Emotional Huge Amount Scene Including Details Attachment Fades Chapters Manuscripts Less Is More Small Details

Author:Sarah Waters

“I love it when characters surprise you, just like real people. When I write a scene I just try to make the characters behave in a way that feels natural to them. Sometimes that means they make a left turn and do something unexpected. Those are always the best scenes in my opinion.”

People Way Feels Writing Trying Mean Real Sometimes Character Turns Left Natural Opinion Scene Surprise Behave Unexpected Something Unexpected

Author:Brad Falchuk

“I think there are a lot more relationship scenes in my movies that people tend to overlook. A lot of scenes really feel real and are about the characters.”

People Thinking Feels Real Character Scene

Author:Jan de Bont

“Years of live storytelling and character acting have helped me with building vivid locations and scenes.”

Years Character Acting Building Scene Storytelling Location Vivid

Author:David Crabb

“It makes it easier, if you can't do an American accent. I don't know. It's different. I played a character in Never Let Me Go where the script for my character was very sparse, and I enjoyed it. With Never Let Me Go, I had a whole book written from my character's point of view, so I always knew where I was. But, with Ryan [Gosling], it was just easy. He's such a brilliant actor and he is so prepared. He doesn't have to warm himself up to be in a scene. He's just in it. It draws you in, in a way.”

Ifs Knows Way Book Different Whole Character Actors Easy Views Written Easier Scene Draws Let Me Prepared Scripts Warm Point Of View Brilliant Enjoyed Accents Let Me Go Never Let Me Go

Author:Carey Mulligan

“When people embrace character, it informs their living, breathing moments in a scene so well.”

People Wells Moments Character Scene Embrace Breathing

Author:Nathan Fillion

“Even one word, or certainly one sentence, should be able to describe the basic characteristic that the scene has, or the character has, or the story has. And then you begin to detail that one spine, and you have offshoots from that spine, and it becomes more and more complex, but all of it stems from that one-word, one-line theme, which can give the character, the scene, or the play its uniqueness.”

Giving Should Play Character Stories Able Lines Scene Complexes Details Sentences Characteristics Theme Uniqueness Stem One Word Spine One Line One Sentence

Author:William Shatner

“I never want to write something until I know every scene in the movie. I don't want someone hiring me and then me not being able to write it. Which is always a fear. So I like to figure it out, know all the characters, and know almost every scene in the movie before I start writing.”

Knows Want Writing Character Able Figures Scene Hiring

Author:Stephen Sommers

“I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety, or misery. It can propel narrative switftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. Finally, it is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience.”

“Michael Bohn provides a rare opportunity to experience the American sporting scene in the Roaring Twenties. A constant stream of legendary characters marches across these pages. You’ll meet them all: The Babe, The Four Horsemen, The Manassa Manassas Mauler, The Wheaton Iceman, Bill Tilden, Gertrude Ederle, and Grantland Rice, the sportswriter whose purple prose made them all come alive.”

“I love Kimberly Peirce. Incredibly intense is a good way of describing her. Brutally honest. Really sharp. She's a director for actors. That's what she's best at, sitting down with an actor and just getting to the heart of what a scene is. And getting to the heart of not just what the scene is and the character is, but what you are, and how to build that bridge between the "me" and the character, and those emotions.”

Way Heart Character Actors Emotion Honest Scene Directors Sitting Intense Bridges Describing Good Way Sitting Down Brutally Honest

Author:Joseph Gordon-Levitt

“An Emraan Hashmi film has come to guarantee certain ingredients: An intense, grey central character, a beautiful girl - if he gets lucky, then two - couple of kisses, a few bold scenes, fabulous music and a climatic twist.”

Ifs Two Character Beautiful Film Certain Girl Couple Scene Lucky Kissing Intense Guarantees Ingredients Grey Fabulous Twists Beautiful Girl

Author:Emraan Hashmi

“Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die. But, once realise what the true object is in life that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds' but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (Illustrated)

“The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating comick characters, or of filling tragedy with poetical images, must be the gift of nature, which no instruction nor labour can supply; but the art of dramatick disposition, the contexture of the scenes, the involution of the plot, the expedients of suspension, and the strategems of surprise, are to be learned by practice.”

Writing Art Character Practice Player Scene Degrees Tragedy Surprise Labour Plot Instruction Disposition Filling Suspension

Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler

Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler

“I have done scenes as Harvey Two-Face. It's interesting. I won't tell you exactly what we're going for, but I think that I can say that it will use all of today's technology to create this character. He's going to be interesting, and I think that's what makes this character important in the movie-you get to see him as he was before, as in the comic books. Harvey is a very good guy in the comic books. He's judicious. He cares. He's passionate about what he loves and then he turns into this character. So you will see that in this film.”

Thinking I Can Two Important Book Done Character Use Care Today Film Faces Guy Turns Interesting Technology Scene Very Good Passionate Comic Comic Book Good Guy Harvey

Author:Aaron Eckhart

“I'd like to think that I don't have a stock character that I go to. I'm lucky in that when you get to initiate your own scene, you get to play whoever you want. That's really kind of cool, but all my characters are short. I look on the videotape, and I thought they were taller, but they're all 5'2".”

Thinking Want Looks Kind Play Character Scene Lucky Initiate

Author:Amy Poehler

“A film is a living thing. The screenplay is a guideline. You really need to have a good, sound script to know that you have a dramatic structure that's going to work thematically, and to know how one scene will got through another, and to get a sense of character.”

Knows Needs Character Film Sound Know How Scene Structure Scripts Dramatic Going To Work Living Things Screenplays Guidelines

Author:Jose Padilha

“I don't feel like you can fully find the true character until you're in his wardrobe, on set, and really getting into the scene. And that's when you really find out who your character is.”

Feels Character Like You Scene Wardrobe True Character

Author:Tye Sheridan

“I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier.”

Children Made Book Character Parent Cities Strange Scene Discovery Towns Mere Manners Native Regions Observing Alarms Visiting

Book:History of New York. Sketch book. Bracebridge Hall

Source: History of New York. Sketch book. Bracebridge Hall

“Never far from a dining table, the characters in Heather A. Slomski's limpid and elegant debut collection are not given to melodramatics. Civility reigns, voices are not raised, much goes unsaid. But just beneath the sophisticated composure are longing, loss, heartbreak. And how intensely familiar is the table itself, which made this reader suddenly understand how much of our real life takes place there. Heather A. Slomski is truly a fresh voice on the scene, and The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons is that rare thing, a new book as innovative in its design as it is compulsively readable.”

“My writing's like a journey. I'll know some of the stops ahead of time, and I'll make some of those stops and some of them I won't. Some will be a moot point by the time I get there. You know every script will have four to six basic scenes that you're going to do. It's all the scenes where your characters really come from.”

Knows Writing Character Four Journey Scene Six Scripts Ahead Of Time

Author:Quentin Tarantino

“When a novelist or screenwriter is looking for a subject, the element he's seeking is conflict. Conflict makes drama. Conflict produces great characters and memorable scenes. So war is a natural topic.”

War Character Natural Subjects Produce Drama Scene Conflict Elements Seeking Novelists Memorable Topics Screenwriters Great Character

Author:Steven Pressfield

“There's a rhythm to the words combined with the pictures [in a comic]. Whenever I'm working on a comic strip I re-read it, probably hundreds of times through to pay attention to how all of those things work. Sometimes even changing the angle of a character's eyebrow can really, seriously alter the effect and overall interpretation of a scene. And the insertion of a pause or a cough or a sniff, and all these things that we do in conversation, can bring it to life in a strange way.”

Way Sometimes Character Pay Attention Effects Strange Scene Conversation Rhythm Comic Pay Attention Interpretation Pauses Angle Eyebrows Comic Strips

Author:Chris Ware

“When I look at a character, whether he's good or bad, one scene or 10 scenes, I just have to find my way in.”

Way Looks Character Scene My Way

Author:Patrick Wilson

“I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.”

Stills Character Action Fighting Acting Scene Creating Treats Dialogue Creating Something

Author:Clive Owen

“Stephen Moyer is probably the most gracious, gifted actor that Ive met. Hes really intelligent. He has a real sensitivity to his character, to scenes, to scripts.”

Real Character Actors Mets Scene Intelligent Scripts Gifted Sensitivity Gracious

Author:Valerie Cruz

“I really think that the Jersey Boys musical - and this is just my opinion - lends itself to being cinematic in some way, because its a jukebox musical; the characters break into song only for the scene transitions.”

Thinking Way Character Song Opinion Boys Break Scene Musical Transition Jersey Cinematic Jukebox

Author:Vincent Piazza

“Well I mean I think everybody was devastated because my last day on set was my death scene and so it was just sad altogether because my character was taking her last breath and I was kind of taking my last breath of air on set with everybody so it's definitely very sad.”

Thinking Wells Kind Mean Character Lasts Air Scene Breaths Last Day Devastated Very Sad

Author:Willow Shields

“Most of the time, I get auditions for deaf characters where the scene has them communicating in really convoluted ways, like reading lips from across the room when the other persons back is turned or having other people parrot what they say.”

People Way Persons Character Reading Rooms Scene Lips Communicate Auditions Deaf Parrots Convoluted

Author:Shoshannah Stern

“The main thing about improvising is listening so if something happens that wasn't expected and you know your character, you know what has to happen in this scene, you can react to that in a way that's honest and it might take you in a different direction to go to the same place.”

Ifs Knows Way Different Character Might Happens Honest Listening Scene Expected Things Happen Different Directions Improvising

Author:Vince Vaughn

“Dysfunctional co-dependent relationships always appeal to me. I don't know exactly how it started. I start writing sketches of characters and little scene-lets, and then it builds.”

Knows Writing Littles Character Scene Appeals Dependent

Author:Elizabeth Meriwether

“I love when people improvise as long as they're great improvisers, what I mean by that is people can improvise within their characters and within the scene.”

People Mean Long Character Scene

Author:Scot Armstrong

“One thing I've learned as an actor as well as a producer is to trust my own instinct. When I first started acting I would sometimes have ideas about certain things, whether it's a scene, or a character or certain dialogue, that wouldn't be followed. I was never in a position to have the power to press the matter. Sometimes it wasn't even about my character. But I'd watch the movie afterwards and think I was right.”

Thinking Firsts Wells Ideas Sometimes Matter Character Certain Actors My Own Acting Watches One Thing Position Scene Presses Instinct Dialogue Producers I've Learned Things I've Learned

Author:Gerard Butler

“There's no such thing as life; or if there is, It is faster than the weather, faster than Any character. It is more than any scene: Of the guillotine or of any glamorous hanging.”

Ifs Life Character Scene Weather Faster Glamorous Guillotine

Book:The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

“Judged by the stark, sure-footed portrait in Hard Time, Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben clearly have John Constantine down, cold and to the life. Azzarellos grasp of pacing, character and situation resonates through every scene with a black crystal clarity thats short of masterful, while Corben contributes what is, perhaps, one of the most darkly expressive pieces in a long, already-legendary career.”

Long Hard Character Black Situation Careers Pieces Cold Scene Clarity Hard Times Judged Portraits Crystals Starks Expressive Legendary Brian Pacing Constantine

Author:Alan Moore

“I've been inspired by dreams - I've even stolen scenes or images or characters from them.”

Character Dream Scene Inspired Stolen

Author:Neil Gaiman

“I'm such a believer in going to set, even when you're not work because I think the best things to be learned, you don't necessarily get from your own scene or from someone speaking to you and telling you advice. I think it's all about watching and just taking it all in. It's not even when the cameras are rolling, necessarily. You can see how they interact with the rest of the crew, and how they deal with being a character and then being themselves.”

Thinking Character Deals Advice Scene Cameras Believer Best Things Rolling Crew

Author:Lily Collins

“Film is much more visual, a scene is typically a lot shorter, you’re dealing with a lot more characters, a lot more locations and you’re able to rely on things that you just can never do on the stage.”

Character Able Film Stage Scene Rely Visuals Location

Author:Beau Willimon

“I never rehearse scenes with the whole ensemble, because I need to preserve some surprise. Instead, I work with the cast individually on their characters.”

Needs Whole Character Scene Surprise Casts Preserves Ensemble

Author:Arnaud Desplechin

“I am of the generation of writers who can get instant feedback from readers within hours of publication. The fan forum is extraordinary - readers from all over the world coming together to discuss, argue and debate scenes and characters from a novel. They add a layer to the story that I cannot write and yes, I will participate in that conversation and answer questions. After all, they are the people I'm writing for and their enthusiasm and questions really pushes me to raise the bar.”

“It's never really fun to have to cry in a scene, or anything like that. I just try to put myself in the characters position, and that helps. It's never really fun, but at the same time, if you're having a really bad day, it's a great way to get out all of your frustration by doing a really angry or sad scene. That's always a good release.”

Ifs Way Trying Character Helping Fun Cry Position Scene Angry Release Frustration Bad Day Really Bad Days

Author:Abigail Breslin

“Silent is about needing to make a scene shorter by having physical things to cut to. That way, you can manipulate a character to the other side of the room. But, if they say the wrong thing, it might locate that action in a particular part of the scene. It's a mechanical need.”

Ifs Way Needs Character Might Action Sides Rooms Cutting Particular Scene Silent Manipulate Wrong Things Physical Things

Author:Gus Van Sant

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