Tv Character Quotes & Sayings

In the theater, it's a visceral and physical response because you move around so much. You have to do something physical to pull you in. On TV or in movies, everything is so small. You can just lock into a character and ease yourself into that way. — LaTanya Richardson

When you're doing a play that's fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV. — Carrie Preston

Whether these characters are lovable or detestable, they're lovable or detestable in a TV way - defined by a minimal set of traits that are endlessly reiterated and incapable of expansion or alteration, a fixed loop. — Jonathan Rosenbaum

In some ways, a novel isn't as structurally rigorous as a screenplay or a TV show, which have finite real estate. In a novel, you can more deeply illuminate a character's interior and get away with digressions. — Howard Gordon

I love television; I specifically love having a dumb character on a TV show. — Bill Lawrence

I don't really think it matters if you go into stage or TV as long as you do a bit of character work, really. — Rose Leslie

If you get on a TV show that's successful, odds are that you're playing the same character for as many years as the show is running, which can be its own blessing, but it can also be a curse because you're playing the same thing and that can be tiresome. — Sarah Paulson

Though, technically, I'm shooting on location, my films are actually based inside a woman's heart. I think women are more emotional than men, and that's a thread I've explored in all my films. When I see TV these days, I'm shocked at how all the main women characters are portrayed as evil. Women are the foundation of everything, and they deserve to be treated that way on camera. — Yash Chopra

Like stories, people have individual lives, and are all caught up in this murky thing. All of them have the best intentions. In that sense, you could just as easily tell the same story from another character's perspective. Maybe that's a good idea for a TV series. — Anton Corbijn

A long-running TV series is a beast in that it demands you stick to one character over a long haul. — Grant Bowler

It's a real democratic time for comedy, and I think my special is a sign for that. You don't have to just be a classic stand-up to get a special, or you don't just have to be on Saturday Night Live to do characters and sketch on TV. The web has allowed me to show that there are different ways to make people laugh, and the special is a combination of those things. — Nick Kroll

After writing for TV for a while, I got sort of fed up with all of the cancellations and the volatility in that industry. Also, you're always writing for someone else's character and story, and I really wanted to develop my own. — Kristin Gore

There's a lot of kids' shows that are really popular ratings-wise, but they don't sell a lot of stuff. A character on a backpack just doesn't have the same appeal as watching it on TV. — Tom Kenny

For me, if the writing and - by extension - the subject matter and the characters are all good, it doesn't matter if it's film or TV. Each medium has great things going for it. — Adam Croasdell

I've done some TV and I've done a lot of theater, obviously, and the last character I played on Broadway was a very fast-talking broad. I'm used to learning material and words. — Sutton Foster

I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles. — Sanaa Lathan

TV is providing such amazing possibilities - you have such lively characters, fantastic stories and ambiguous messages, and viewers feel very satisfied. — Fedor Bondarchuk

A great thing is happening on cable TV. You see characters change in stories over years, like in Tolstoy. That's a whole, thrilling new form that I really enjoy. They are Tolstoy-an in their endless character development and narrative changes ... a show like 'Breaking Bad' is astonishing. — Mike Nichols

People become desensitized to many things going on around them. It is because they always see it on the tv, hear it on the radio, read or watch it on the internet, hear about it at work etc. Then immoral acts are tuned to a deaf ear. Then no one wants to take action or speak up for what's right. Break the cycle and have moral character. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

I was lucky enough to be in some movies where I had powerful characters or I got to be the president on TV for a little while. Very short administration. — Geena Davis

I think the reason the stories are briskly paced, when they are, is that I like story. I like stories where things happen and there are surprises and reversals, in addition to vivid characters and a memorable voice. So those are the kinds of stories I try to write. And it turns out that's pretty much the only kind of writing that works for TV. It's a medium that just devours story, demands surprises and reversals. So my sensibility is suited to TV storytelling, at least as we think of it today. — Nick Antosca

It's difficult to get away from the shadow of a TV character. — Jason Lee

It's not a matter of temptation!" Hirou said. "It's ... " he trailed off for a moment. It wasn't that he couldn't find the words. It was that the concepts didn't exist in this world. What he wanted to say was that he had a pretty good idea what sort of behavior got you listed as a villain, in the great TV Tropes wiki of the universe; and he'd had a worried eye on his own character sheet since the day he'd realized what he'd gotten himself into; and he absolutely positively wasn't going to go Dark Messiah, Knight Templar, Well Intentioned Extremist, or for that matter Lawful Stupid. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I wouldn't want to play a character that knew everything and knew where to go. It is much more interesting playing a character that is vulnerable trying to be strong. It makes for better TV. — Missy Peregrym

Because we put ourselves in a movie or on TV, then it must mean we want to be completely open to the world. Sometimes, people will run up to you as if this is Disneyland and I'm a character. I understand their point of view, but it's difficult to explain how terrified it makes me. I'm so nervous. — Brie Larson

I think TV is all about caring, and if you don't care about a character in a drama or a person when they get voted out of a reality show, it's bad TV. I wouldn't care if you dropped a bomb on the 'Big Brother' house. — Ray Winstone

I set the vodka glasses on the table, and we become gently drunk in the foetal warmth. The Australian woman doesn't quite get the picture. We have a brief exchange in English. 'Do you have a car?' she asks. 'No,' I reply. 'A TV?' 'No.' 'What if you have a problem?' 'I walk.' 'Do you go to the village for food?' 'There is no village.' 'Do you wait for a car on the road?' 'There is no road.' 'Are those your books?' 'Yes.' 'Did you write all of them?' I prefer people whose character resembles a frozen lake to those who are more like marshes. — Sylvain Tesson

I began by doing a lot of character work on TV, just fun acting parts. — Robert Redford

I'm a character-driven director, and I tend to fall in love with the characters in my movies and TV shows. — Doug Liman

I come from a theater background, so usually, at the start, you know what happens and where the character goes and everything. But with TV, it's really unpredictable. — Kimiko Glenn

Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesnt help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes todays intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice. — Dan Quayle

It's immoral to parent irresponsibly ... And it doesn't help matters any when prime time tv, like "Murphy Brown", a character who is supposed to represent a successful career woman of today, mocks the importance of the father by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice." Marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program there is ... Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at [such values] I think most of us in this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. — Dan Quayle

I'm a huge fan of BioWare games. I think they do some of the best character-building. I mean, I have a relationship with Thane from 'Mass Effect' that is as vivid as any crush that I've had on a TV-show character. — Felicia Day

This book scratches an old itch. Despite being the level of government that is closest to the people and has so much impact on our quality of life, most people don't know too much about how their local governments operate and even less about what it's like to manage a city or county. Occasionally, a city manager character appears in a novel, movie, or TV show but almost always in a mocking or denigrating fashion that belies the professionalism that is more the norm. — John Thompson

Soaps are great. You learn to work very fast - some say superficially, but that's not really true. You do some very serious character work. I've never had any feelings about a stigma attached to it, and nowadays there seems to be less snobbery about what you do. More and more big names are doing TV and commercials and voiceovers. — Charles Shaughnessy

In the clubs, it's all out and you can say whatever as the character. TV has standards. — Jay Pharoah

A soap opera character on the bar TV says, "You killed him, you smothered him with doughnuts!" Another character, another scene--she is sitting in a room with a man and an elderly woman--the leas character wonders if she's dead. The man says, No, you're alive," and the other woman hands her a plate of doughnuts.
A commercial comes on. A couple are on a date and the woman's voice-over articulates interior thoughts of what a wonderful guy her friend has set her up with: "He's so cute, and his IQ is higher than my bank balance . . . but she didn't tell me he has . . . Tourette's syndrome. — David Byrne

I know it sounds silly, but in auditions for film or TV, the words aren't as important - you need to get into the character and have the gist of the scene. But in theater, if you don't do it word for word, then you throw off your scene partner. — Morgan Saylor

TV has no choice, but to rely on character, and everybody knows that. I love working in it. It's such a big canvas where, if you're successful, you go on for years. — Doug Liman

Each form of the acting is different. I think it keeps your mind active. TV, film and theater are different disciplines, as are independent films, opposed to studio films. There are differences in the size and the genre, or a period drama as opposed to a contemporary drama, or the types of characters. — Luke Evans

With TV, you get on a show and you're there for 11 years playing the same character. I would pull my hair out. Yes, the money is good. But I'm really not in this business to chase dollars. — Taraji P. Henson

I know when I watch a film at this point, if I completely lose myself in the characters and the story and the world of the film I know that it's at least in my opinion, that was great. Otherwise I'm thinking: "Oh I know they were just doing A, B and C, right before they walked into the scene, then the camera was there, then they probably took the shot from this reverse close-up and moved it into this." When all of that drops away then I'm like: "Okay this was phenomenal, this was fantastic." I mean, any film or TV performance in general is probably good. — Gabriel Mann

You'd be naive if you think you are going to retain any control once you option a character to TV. — Kathy Reichs

Switching the public's perception and view of me was, and still is, kind of a challenge to get them to see me outside of a character that I played on TV for so long. — Taylor Momsen

The Baha'i celebrity, or the Belebrity, is a character actor with a big head playing an annoying creep on a TV show. — Rainn Wilson

People say that you want to be varied in your career, and I've done so many things and am very appreciative. But, the one thing I've never done and wanted to do was to be a regular on a TV show, where you get 22 weeks of the year to develop and play a character. I've done arcs of five or eight episodes on shows, but I'd like to have a character that's rich enough and deep enough to want to explore and live with for a few years. Playing the same character, but doing different scenes seems very exciting to me. — Jim Piddock

Even though I had a great deal of respect for children's TV and theatre, it wasn't my intent to specialize solely in that area. I did indeed want to work on shows like "Sesame Street" and I am honored to be even a small part of that legacy, but I also wanted to do characters that had wider vocabulary and satirical humor. — Stephanie D'Abruzzo

I don't really like to arrange shows by best performances. That's why Emmy season is kind of a chore for me. Unlike movies, where it's easier to decide who was the best performance, a TV show goes up and down, including characters/portrayals. — Hank Stuever

TV is a safe place to develop real characters. — Doug Liman

You are playing a character obviously, and everything you are saying is filtered through that person. It is not you that is saying it. It is filtered through a character that doesn't have your own set of values - so it is not really odd. Inevitably we help each other with a lot of line-learning. Plus there is a familiarity which is quite nice. We have done TV together before. — Anna-Louise Plowman

Character is character and voice is voice, which translates nicely from writing novels to writing TV. But the process is different. You have a writer's room, people pitch you jokes and you collaborate. — Jennifer Weiner

Many years ago, Bill Gates said that one day we'd be able to click on the shoes of a character in a TV show and buy them online. Whether that happens or not, are you thinking about new ways to combine your assets in programming, customer knowledge, and technology? — Brian L. Roberts

Well, it was very interesting to play a character and stretch it over such a long time - 12 episodes. I had never done a TV show before, so week to week it was unclear what we would be asked to do. — Nick Stahl

I'd always wanted to do a film than TV show because film is always where my heart has been. I like diving into the character for a few months, and then leaving it behind. I love the idea of that. — Shailene Woodley

LIZZ WINSTEAD Instead of Jon playing a character - the news anchor, one of the derelicts in a derelict world of media - Jon made a creative decision to take the show in the direction of the correspondents presenting the idiocy, and then Jon is the person who calls out the idiocy with the eloquence that the viewer wishes they had. And he did it in a way that's not condescending, it's not smug. It's funny, it's emotional, it's calling out bullshit. So Jon became the voice of the audience. — Chris Smith

You lose somebody you've possibly known for years and on top of that you lose a character that you love seeing on TV so I think that kind of makes it cool that we pay a price too. That it is painful on many levels and its amazing to be writing that moment and crossing that line right on the page and seeing the ugliness of it and having to deal with it. It's a very weird thing. — Scott M. Gimple

You really have to do your job as a writer and push people to be as creative as possible. What's nice about the TV medium is you have such a connection to the characters that when somebody dies, the audience cries. They really feel it. You really don't cry when someone dies in a horror movie. — Glen Mazzara

When you do a TV show, the cumulative intimacy you develop with the audience through your characters is pretty profound. It may be the most profound storytelling there is, because the character gets to live and roll around in the audience's mind week after week. — Howard Gordon

I do think that people get really emotionally involved in the TV shows that they love and I think that is fantastic. Of course they are going to have opinions. The other thing is that people project onto their television shows. They see a character and layer on many traits that are actually their own or their idea of what that character is. — Lisa Edelstein

I've wanted to be an actor since I was eight years old and I did TV commercials when I was a kid. When I was eleven Saturday Night Live came on and I thought, "Oh God, I'd love to do that." I saw the Pink Panther movies and thought, "God, I'd love to have a comedy series; I'd love to have a character I'd created that becomes a series." I've now pretty-much done everything I've wanted to do since I was eight years old and it's a wonderful feeling, I've got to say. — Mike Myers

What's great in theater is that you can sustain the arc of a character for a full three hours, whereas in film or TV, you have to create that arc in little pieces, and usually out of sequence. — Daniel Dae Kim

Whatever is being investigated, created or produced now, in movies or TV, needs to consider the context in which it is being distributed. It's not a vacuum. There are certain universal themes of love, conflict, loyalty or family that are everlasting and that need to be presented in a way that makes it feel relevant, even if it's a period piece. You need to consider what context that film, that story and those characters are being seen in. — J.J. Abrams

Kathy Burke has been a real inspiration. I think she's brilliant. I like the fact she doesn't care what she looks like on TV and just gets really into character. Obviously, she can do drama as well, but it's her comedy I love. — Sheridan Smith

I am not Spock. But given the choice, if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock. If someone said, "You can have the choice of being any other TV character ever played," I would choose Spock. I like him. I admire him. I respect him — Leonard Nimoy

TV is a big business. In some ways, it's surpassed films, in terms of the way people invest in these shows and invest in these characters, and give up so much of their time to follow these people's stories. — Jamie Bell

When you're writing TV or movies your vernacular is time, it's all based on rhythms, a character takes a beat or two characters have a moment, like everything is about time. And when you're writing a comic, everything is about space. It's how many panels to put on a page, when should you do a full page splash, what is the detail that you see in any particular image. — Eric Kripke

It's fun to grow with a character over the course of a TV series. Video games are usually a much more condensed process. — Laura Bailey

Whether it's a lower or higher budget project, a TV show or a film, the words on the page are the same to me and I approach the work in the same way. My job is to lift the character from the page, whether it's a TV or film script. — Michael Eklund

The comic book, and I've said it before, is a treasure trove. It's a grab bag. We certainly have characters and story lines that we really want to do - but to get there in a TV series, you have to take your time. Sometimes you can't get right to it. They're two different mediums. So we make it our own and really own the material. I like to think of it as an alternate universe. — Glen Mazzara

There's just a deeper level of sophistication in the writing of female characters on TV. — Vera Farmiga

If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable. — Aaron Sorkin

I've never understood why every character being "hot" was necessary for enjoying a TV show. — Tina Fey

I've got to get my body back. While I like wearing you, I'd rather wear you as a blanket on top of me and not the skin I'm walking around in. It has this whole Hannibal Lecter aspect that's really creeping me out."Jo
"Hannibal Lecter?" Cadegan
"It's a TV show and book character. Not really important. Like a wombat in a blender." Jo
"I'm not sure what this blender is, but I think I should be feeling bad for that poor wombat." Cadegan — Sherrilyn Kenyon

In my opinion, visual effects are great when it compliments a good story, and action is great when it compliments a good story, but just to have them for the sake of having them, it gets a little boring, especially if you're talking a TV series. At least with a movie that's an hour and a half to two hours, you see it and you're impressed, and then you're out. With a series, if it's only that, week after week after week, there's nothing there to bring you back. You have to get invested in the characters and care about them and want to follow them. — Drew Roy

A lot of the challenge with TV, as opposed to making movies, is that you have to leave room for the characters in the story to tell themselves. Sometimes you don't know where a character is going to go and what's going to happen to them until you've seen the actor take that part and make it their own. — Bruno Heller

I would love to do anything involving a good strong character, whether it's in film, TV or theatre. My dream role's already been taken by Keira Knightley in 'Pride and Prejudice.' Growing up, I really wanted to be Lizzie Bennett. — Roxanne McKee

I started my career in Portugal, and the longest I've ever played a character was for about a year, which is how long our TV shows last. — Daniela Ruah

Because of television, sports columnists have become personalities. I went to a party [during Super Bowl week] and there must have been 500 people who wanted to talk to me because they saw me on TV. I've become sort of the Soupy Sales character on TV, and people do not really know me as a writer. — Woody Paige

Amy Rapp, my producing partner, and I are drawn to character-driven material. We're developing and producing movies and TV, fiction and non-fiction, studio and independent, broadcast and cable, theatre, and web so our slate is really diverse. — Meredith Vieira

For TV I don't think I could have gotten a better part than Uncle Junior because of the intimacy of the character based on David Chase's brilliant writing. — Dominic Chianese

Sometimes you can do certain things on stage, or even in a TV series, and people see the look on your face and they know what you mean, so you can get away with certain things. But if you can't create that look on an animated character, which is essentially a puppet, the line will hit the audience in a very bad way. — Jerry Seinfeld

I think you just have to take everything that happens on a TV show with a grain of salt. You sign up for a show for six years having zero idea where they're going to go with the character, so you just have to get on the ride of the show and go with wherever they take you. — Gillian Jacobs

People would be shocked to know ... that despite the nature of my TV character, I am actually a nice guy. — James Lafferty

I'm not a child star, but you could say that I've grown up on TV. I went from being an unknown, down-and-out comic from Brooklyn and the Bronx to being a regular character on a major network comedy called 'Martin.' From there I went on to become the most notable black comic on 'Saturday Night Live' since Eddie Murphy. — Tracy Morgan

A film has a beginning, middle, and an end. There is a certain amount of time that you have to embody these people. You know the entire story arch. But on TV, you have to let your guard down. You don't know how long the show is going to last. There is this excitement that comes with developing a character long-term. — DJ Qualls

For a long-running TV show, you're looking for a character who is interesting and vibrant and you can imagine going into all kinds of different areas. — Scott Bakula

California, that advance post of our civilization, with its huge aircraft factories, TV and film studios, automobile way of life ... its flavourless cosmopolitanism, its charlatan philosophies and religions, its lack of anything old and well-tried rooted in tradition and character. — J.B. Priestley

Any time you get to dig deeper into your character, you welcome it, especially on a TV show. — Josh Charles

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag. — William H. Macy

I always hear parents talking about how outraged they are because their kid saw a boob or something like that on TV. I never hear anyone say that they're outraged because a cartoon character in a commercial that aired during a children's television program told them it was healthy to eat a bowl of chocolate and marshmallows for breakfast. If I had kids, I'd be outraged about that. — Ian McClellan

A TV show where all of the characters are trying to figure out what's going on, and the suspense of that, fits my [voice] really well. You feel their frustration, anger and fear, and then, when the reveal happens, their sense of dread or horror, or whatever it is, and I like to paint with those colors. — M. Night Shyamalan

Far from being freaks, the Hell's Angels are a logical product of the culture that now claims to be shocked at their existence. The generation represented by the editors of Time has lived so long in a world full of Celluloid outlaws hustling toothpaste and hair oil that it is no longer capable of confronting the real thing. For twenty years they have sat with their children and watched yesterday's outlaws raise hell with yesterday's world ... and now they are bringing up children who think Jesse James is a television character. This is the generation that went to war for Mom, God and Apple Butter, the American Way of Life. When they came back, they crowned Eisenhower and then retired to the giddy comfort of their TV parlors, to cultivate the subtleties of American history as seen by Hollywood. — Hunter S. Thompson

There have been discussions of doing 'The Demon Cycle' on both large and small screen scale, and while there is no project currently in development, I think the series has both the big imagery and complex character development to have legs either as a TV series or film franchise. — Peter V. Brett

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me. — Maria Semple

In 1977, at age ten, I was cast on the TV sitcom 'Good Times.' My character was Penny, an abused child in desperate need of love. I really didn't want to do the show. I didn't want to be away from my family. — Janet Jackson

For me, the attraction of TV is that you continue to get to tell those stories and refine those characters. The other thing is that TV, in the last years, got really, really, really good. — Jonathan Nolan

TV deals in very broad strokes. Like, 'Oh, that's my dumb friend', or, 'That's my funny friend.' A true best friend, a sidekick, has to be a little deeper then that. You have to feel like there's nothing either character won't do. That someone really, really has their back. — Willie Garson

My choices in projects have all been character or role-based, and on a financial level, it's obvious: as an actor on a TV series, I get a wonderful paycheck, and a consistent paycheck, which doesn't always happen when you're doing theater or movies. — Jim Parsons

One of the great things about TV is the story to tell can be very internal and really character-based. — Mitchell Hurwitz

One reason I find all this character growth and narrative swerving so exhilarating is because I never got to do it when I wrote for TV. Our characters needed to remain consistent from week to week. — Maria Semple