We get more dangerous as we accumulate knowledge, and that's both a sadness and something to control, try to learn to live with, make terms with.
It's a bad day when you don't get the work done that you need to get done or you don't get it done to the satisfaction.
I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a real collaboration for me.