“Am I going to enjoy playing this character?”

Actor Tom Wilkinson explained how he decided which roles to take.

Actor Tom Wilkinson recently passed away. You may remember him for roles in such movies as Batman Begins, Shakespeare in Love, The Full Monty and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The NPR series Fresh Air replayed an interview with Wilkinson. Here is an excerpt.

DAVIES: How do you decide which roles you will take? Are you drawn to…

WILKINSON: It’s simple, Dave. You just follow your nose. You ask those simple, really instinctive questions like, you know, can I shine in this role? Can I do this role better than anybody in the world? Is there something in it that I recognize? Nothing — you know, it’s not — really not to do with the money or the director or the other members of the cast. The first simple thing is, am I going to enjoy playing this character? And it’s childish, I know. And I shouldn’t, for my great age, be admitting to something so sort of, you know — do I like the look of this toy, or am I going to wait to the next toy shop and see if there’s something even cuddlier? No, that’s how it works. It’s purely instinctive decision.

The first simple thing is, am I going to enjoy playing this role?

This is an important takeaway for screenwriters. One of our many tasks in a writing a screenplay — and it’s a critical goal — is to craft characters actors want to act. As my DePaul University and screenwriting colleague Brad Riddell says: “Screenplays are actor bait.”

I drive home this point with my students by writing the word “character” on the white board, then writing this: Care. Actor.

We need to write roles which an actor will care about.

Am I going to enjoy playing this role.

Here are some special movie moments featuring Tom Wilkinson.

Images of Tom Wilkinson playing roles … of characters he cared about.

You can listen to the Fresh Air interview excerpt here.