Who are they, and where did they come from?

I was thinking about characters today, not any characters in particular but about writers and their attitudes to their characters. To be honest, I only know about my own characters in my books, I haven’t actually talked to anyone else about theirs, but my thoughts came from being a reader, an avid reader, and addicted reader. If I was able to interview other writers maybe I’d be able to ask some questions about this aspect of their writing.

Are your characters based on real people?
Is your main character based on yourself?
If the answer to the previous question is yes, then is the character a true-ish portrayal of you, or is it how you would like to be, or is it an exaggerated representation of one aspect of your own personality?
If your characters are based on real people to what extent, if at all, do you try and disguise their identities?
The same as above – and does your character have the same appearance as the person s/he’s based on?
If your character is totally imaginary, what sparked their creation? Was it because you needed a certain ‘person’ in the story, or did you decide to write about a certain type of person e.g. a detective/soldier/ /romantic lead etc?
How did you decide on the appearance of your characters? Do you have ‘models’ or ‘actors’ – for example a person you know, a well-known person, a portrait or photo of an unknown person you’ve seen?
If you have totally made up the appearance of your character, how did you do that? Did you ‘build’ them like an identikit image?
Do you like your characters? Are you a little in love with your characters?
Do you indulge your characters and bend plots to make sure all works out for them? Do you sacrifice aspects of the story for the sake of your characters?
Do you aspire to be like your character – in appearance or personality? Or would you like to be like them, or even be them? Are you envious of them?
Is writing your story like rôle play?
Is it hard to let go of your characters when you finish a story?