One of my favorite tidbits about Oblivion is that, when Bethesda brought Patrick Stewart in to play Uriel Septim, they gave him this big 90-page booklet detailing the character’s history and background and motivations, and they were really worried that they’d gone overboard and given him too much.  Meanwhile, Stewart was delighted–he’s said that it was the best character prep he’d ever been given, and he wished more people would do that.