Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail.
“There is, however, a change going on in the world. There's far more interest in drawing now than there has been in a long, long time. Schools are beginning to teach drawing again in a serious and meaningful way.”
“Sharia has become an increasingly significant force in American capitalism, thanks to the embrace by Wall Street and the U.S. government of so-called Sharia-Compliant Finance. Indeed, this country's taxpayers now own the largest purveyor of sharia-compliant insurance products in the world: AIG.”