Quotes & Sayings About Flawed Characters

I love flawed female characters, duking it out. — Lena Dunham

With my physicality and my face, I don't think I could pull off a completely righteous guy. There's something devious about my eyes. I like characters with flaws and to see how they overcome those flaws. I want to play real people, and they're flawed, not perfect. — Emraan Hashmi

It used to be that you had to make female TV characters perfect so no one would be offended by your 'portrayal' of women. Even when I started out on 'The Office' eight years ago, we could write our male characters funny and flawed, but not the women. And now, thankfully, it's completely different. — Mindy Kaling

Make sure your main characters are likeable. They can be flawed, but your readers need to be able to root for them. — Janet Evanovich

I always look to play flawed characters. I'm not very interested in playing somebody that's just, you know, the very nice one or the attractive one, or whatever, which a lot of female parts can just be written that way. — Laura Donnelly

All jokes aside, it's a very difficult job playing the straight man. Jason is potentially the most brilliant straight man that ever was because he's also really funny while doing it, which is even harder. I've always seen myself playing characters who are flawed. We use comedy in our lives to obscure the drama. — Will Arnett

People often ask me if I feel discriminated against as a black female director. I don't. I'm actually offered a ton of stuff. But I only want to direct what I write. And I prefer to focus on black female characters. What's most important to me is to put characters up onscreen who are not perfect, but who are human and flawed. — Gina Prince-Bythewood

Also, in my acting, I feel very much like a storyteller, exploring the flaws of the characters that I interpret. I look for the imperfections, and I love a character that is just so flawed. — Danny Huston

I generally like grey roles. My interpretation of drama is different from the popular perception. Acting, for me, is not about overplaying, it is about concealing. I like flawed characters that people relate to. I would never do a romcom. — Emraan Hashmi

Flawed characters ... a ticking clock ... morally questionable acts on all sides ... moody, evocative art ... oh yeah, this the stuff crime noir fans love! — Christos Gage

Some of my favorite shows are ones where the characters are vile and human and flawed. That's what makes me want to keep watching a show, not writers telling me how to feel about characters. — Tatiana Maslany

I like it when characters are some combination of appealing and maybe flawed or self-interested. I think in terms of scenes, and what I want a scene to achieve, and I think that the psychological realism arises from that. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Whether consciously or unconsciously, I felt myself drawn to writing a female character who was pretty flawed and not very virtuous or wonderful or attractive in these ways that throughout literary history we've come to expect female characters to be. — Leni Zumas

I do think that animated films have the ability to touch you someplace. There is something about live action movies that is different because we know the characters are real people, so they always stay flawed for us somehow. But animated films touch us in a very clear, uncomplicated place. They have that ability. And an animated character can make an expression in a way humans can't do. — Steve Martin

It is part of the received doctrine of modern biography that all characters are Flawed, and as a Christian priest I am quite ready to agree, but the Flaws the biographers exhibited usually meant that the person under discussion had not seen eye to eye with the biographer on matters of politics, or social betterment, or something impersonal. — Robertson Davies

Human beings are complicated and flawed and unique, but we all have a story to tell. Gone are the days where our lead characters can only look like somebody else. Heroes look like all of us. We see ourselves in each others' stories. We see who we are. We see who we want to be. Sometimes we see who we don't want to be. And through that we have a greater understanding of ourselves and acceptance of each other. — Kerry Washington

I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I think that most of my books are part of some process of self-education, often about the places I go to. Most of all, they are about the peculiar tension between institutional loyalty and loyalty to oneself; the mystery of patriotism, for a Brit of my age and generation, where it runs, how it should be defined, what it's worth and what a corrupting force it can be when misapplied. All that stuff is just in me and it comes out in the characters. I don't mean to preach, but I know I do, and I'm a very flawed person. It's quite ridiculous. — John Le Carre

My main characters are the most sunny, happy, optimistic, loving creatures on the face of the Earth. I couldn't be happier that's where I start. I can put as many flawed people in the dog's world as I like, but the dog doesn't care. Dog doesn't judge. Dog doesn't dislike. Dog loves. That's not so bad. — Bruce Cameron

I love creating characters that are ridiculous and flawed. To me, the most important thing about comedy is the joy it can bring to the performers and the audience alike. I love making people laugh and not over-thinking things. Some of my favorite moments are when I am doing an improv scene with friends, and I can't stop laughing during it. — Lauren Lapkus

I think it's very important to write a demythologized woman character. My characters are flawed. They are no better than they should be. — Anne Enright

The characters are whole, real people to me that I'm getting to know, and since real people are all flawed, so are my characters, I hope. — Sara Zarr

I have a thing about losers. Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws. Not that Dostoyevsky's characters don't generate phatos, but they're flawed in ways that don't come across as faults. And while I'm on the subject, Tolstoy's characters' faults are so epic and out of scale, they're as static as backdrops. — Haruki Murakami

Although I love all genres, I really love to play in two main arenas: Comedy and Thriller/Horror. In either genre I love playing flawed, layered characters that are actively fighting to achieve something in the story. — Kyle Cassie

It's a trap I've fallen into earlier in my career - trying to be liked. Don't do it. When I watch TV and I see someone trying to make me like them, acting cute or quirky or goofy, I'm not impressed. Don't act like America's watching you. Just latch onto your character. Characters are flawed. Be unlikeable. Be flawed. Be a person. — Nathan Fillion

I think it's really important to depict complex, flawed LGBT characters, because we are all connected by our humanity. — Kit Williamson

I try to write about real women, real people - in other words flawed characters. — Emily Giffin

I like flawed characters very much. A lot of times I get asked to do parts that are kind of small but key - three-scene roles that are three kick-ass scenes. Growing up, watching as many movies as I did, I was always into character actors like that. — Bobby Cannavale

I have always believed there is great value in studying the flaws of mankind and men - even fictional characters. All of us are flawed. All of us are diminished by some form of prejudice and bias. If a fictional character is to be realistic, he must struggle with imperfections and weaknesses. — K. Lee Lerner

One of the things about the '70s films I love - the films 'Nightcrawler' is being compared to, like, 'Taxi Driver' - is that they never put their flawed characters into any one box. — Dan Gilroy

Rarely is the pain of losing someone expressed with such directness, energy, and, yes, humor. The grief in Evan Kuhlman'sWolf Boyis palpable, and so is the flawed, honest humanity of his characters. Here is real loss and somehow, real catharsis. — Peter Orner

The beauty of the characters on 'Justified' is that all the human beings that are written are all flawed. Even with the good guys, you see darkness surface. — Mykelti Williamson

Like most people, I'm fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect. — Chang-rae Lee

It seems to me that most characters, in anything, are flawed in some way, just like most people. You look for the good in the flawed people and vice versa, and then try and make them appealing in some way. — Aidan Gillen

As an audience member, I live vicariously through the characters I watch or read about. There's something very relatable about comic-book characters. They're never perfect. They're flawed people put in extraordinary circumstances. — James Badge Dale

But I guess I like playing flawed guys 'cause it gives a place for the characters to go. — Aaron Eckhart

I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect. — Tom Berenger

Some of the best characters are the most flawed characters. — Brian A. McBride

if the thought of conflict and trouble makes you chortle gleefully and race to your computer, you are definitely in the right place. If you love conflict, chances are your characters will be flawed and in trouble. That's a good thing. Here's why: People with perfect lives are boring, and . . . well . . . frankly, they're irritating. How — Debra Dixon

I'm very drawn to characters who are very flawed. I'm less interested in characters who are just good or bad, because to me then they're not real people. — Rachel Weisz

There's a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they're interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they're just a mess. It's good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality. — Ellen Pompeo

I love flawed characters, male or female, and I only want to talk about flawed characters, really, in what I do. — Jenji Kohan

When I first started writing the books in the 1980s, all of the female detectives were flawed in some way because they were based on noir characters. — Kerry Greenwood

Why not provoke some thought and get people talking about things? I like characters that are flawed because we all are. When people break up in a script, you think, Oh, right, there must be tears shed here. But maybe the fact of the matter is that they're both laughing. — Michael Fassbender

I don't set out to write female lead shows, necessarily. I like deeply flawed characters. When they come to me, or when I'm introduced to them, I follow the stories and the people, rather than setting out to do a female lead thing. — Jenji Kohan

Shakespeare didn't conceive of his tragedy in Aristotelian terms - that is, as a tragedy of the fall of a flawed great man - but rather as a collision of deeply held and irreconcilable principles, embodied in characters who are destroyed when these principles collide. — James Shapiro

Should men and women be equal in all things? Absolutely. But I'm old-fashioned in that I like the differences between the sexes. My male characters are neither Neanderthals nor Prince Charmings. They're flawed. — Sandra Brown

It's not a religion, it's a relationship!'
Without the religion, without the archaic and flawed holy texts, there wouldn't be anything for you to manufacture a 'relationship' with. Without the wars and forced conversions key to the religion's spread across the globe, it may have died out long ago like so many others have. If that were the case, you wouldn't know the characters of Jesus or God or Muhammad or any of the tales and myths associated with a particular faith. Religions concern themselves with preserving and worshiping these myths as realities, without regard to substantial evidence to the contrary. — David G. McAfee

The best characters are always wretchedly flawed — Danai Gurira

Writing isn't about creating perfect characters. There's no such thing. It's about creating characters that are real; flawed
yet beautiful, in that they know they need another person. Needing someone else doesn't make them weak; if they believed all they needed was them self, they would be. A strong heroine isn't afraid to admit that a best friend, or soul mate, is exactly what they need at one moment or another. A strong heroine never stands alone. They stand tall; they believe in who they are. They are perfect in every human flaw, because as humans we are flawed. And in every flaw, I see the perfection of their souls. Writers breath life into simple words and create beings
flaws and all. — Cassandra Giovanni

I write flawed characters. Ones that do not always make the best decisions and are driven by ambition or lust. They are not black or white, they are in the large space that exists between. — Kevin James Breaux