Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I really want the sense of black people being interconnected: If you black and you from Chicago, there's a connective tissue we all have. Even if you're not blood related, that doesn't mean I can't look out for you.
Talk to any black person in my age group, and they'll say 'A Different World' is why they went to college. The show literally changed my life, and it boggles my mind that it doesn't get the kind of love it deserves.
There's something mystical and wonderful about being in the room with the actual live performer s on stage that works. In film, it doesn't work so you're dependent on a great director to keep the thing moving along.
When I just write something, it's usually because I love it, I love the material, but I feel like I really need a creative partner to crack it. And I certainly need and have a lot of creative partners as a director.
The huge advantage of boarding school is that it throws you into the social fire. Every social interaction I've had since then has been a million times easier. Literally, ever since then, it's all been child's play.
If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.
The most important thing for me in an action sequence is, you understand the characters' intention and the challenges the characters are going to have to face: what the character story is within the action sequence.
I know Charlie Kaufman really well, for instance. Charlie Kaufman starts a story, and he has no freaking idea where he's going. None. Zero. And he doesn't want to know, because there's a little bit of death in that.
There's more to come. Series 4 [of Peaky Blinders] is coming soon. But I'm proud of making my hometown, which is considered to be completely unfashionable, slightly fashionable. People actually know where it is now.
The forces that run the world always try to keep things under control. The population might be having a wonderful time, buying iPods and going to nice restaurants, but I still feel they're all kind of under control.
We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.
Where do you go after something like 'Pacific Rim?' Which, for me, was such a moment, to have this thing and see it all come together, and it's big, and it has this cult following... You ask yourself, 'What's next?'
It's much, much harder working on a show than it is working on a movie. It really is. Even if you're in production, that production lasts for a set period of time. A TV show goes on for months and months and months.
Honestly, I don't try to guess at what most people want. I don't think I'd guess right, and I just think that that's not a good recipe for storytelling. I try to write what I like, what I think my friends would like.
The world is constantly changing. You're constantly learning and you have to be willing to get off your mark, and get off your spot and take that knowledge you have not to fix yourself into a place but to keep going.
'The Real World' is the most predictable arc ever. They get on the show, they're all excited, we're gonna be best friends, then people start drinking and get hammered, and say stupid stuff, and that's pretty much it.
Kindness, tolerance, integrity, modesty, generosity - these are attributes that events permit us. They are our holiday moods, and we are as proud of them as of the fine clothes we have hung away to wear on occasions.
When you get to the fourth, fifth and sixth years of a show, it's really good to have held back, so that you have somewhere to go. That also applies to levels of violence, levels of humor, levels of production value.
I'm probably harder on myself than I need to be, but it's important to me if I'm going to ask an audience for an hour of their time that I don't waste their time. I want to give them something significant to chew on.
It occurred to me that every work of art is a synecdoche, there's no way around it. Every creative work that someone does can only represent an aspect of the whole of something. I can't think of an exception to that.
And then to see the whole movie, you're pretty much waiting until the end of production. And the major lifting in terms of editing and all that stuff is done before you shoot the movie. That's an unusual way to work.
When I found myself in that situation - that actors are like children, I tried to be successful. And when it worked and I figured out how to communicate that things were good - or at least okay - then I felt pleased.
I hope we build a son who's strong enough to stand up for other people. And if Donald Trump is out there teaching folks how to build walls, we're hoping to instil in our son the ability to know how to take them down.
I wandered around in a confused daze for most of the '90s unable to even remember why I wanted to be a filmmaker and somehow I found myself at the turn of the century. I used lost film as an excuse to express myself.
My first job after graduating was working with Robert Zemeckis. I got a job a week after graduating and moving to L.A. So I got to work on 'What Lies Beneath' and 'Castaway' as a PA, which is basically like a gopher.
Writing a screenplay needs to be more than words on a page - and by the way, I think the words on the page are something you have to try to execute on the highest level you can; I'm not dismissing that by any regard.
Passion... it lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open its jaws, and howl. It speaks to us, guides us... passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?
None of my movies have ever made any money, so it's not about commercial success for me. It's always the same thing. I want to create something valuable, something unusual and different that the world has never seen.
I was really exposed to great old-time literature - the classics, the poetic realists like Strindberg and Ibsen and all those guys. I was really inspired by all those guys. That's when writing became a primary focus.
I have no problem selling books to media franchises and we do it all the time. The author must understand that he/she is a writer for hire and has no control over copyright or over editorial changes made to the text.
The worst of the action films are the ones where everything is one shout from beginning to finish. And there's no differentiation between beats, like small or big, or quiet or expansive. It's all just one loud shout.
Having a strong sense of self is fundamental to you, no matter what you're doing. I don't care if you're a stay at home mom raising kids or if you're the CEO of a corporation. It's really important for your survival.
A person has three choices in life. You can swim against the tide and get exhausted, or you can tread water and let the tide sweep you away, or you can swim with the tide, and let it take you where it wants you to go.
Usually, people begin with very clear ideas of good movies, they begin with clear ideas about their characters, and then, as they do sequels, they seem to forget the characters more and more, and try to out-spectacle.
he beauty of this world [of comics] is there are so many stories to tell, and there's so many wonderful characters. Wonderful characters we haven't even begun to introduce - it's a world that is infinitely expandable.
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
I think everyone understands when these cycles are disrupted, especially in terms of institutionalized poverty, it's always will be difficult - patterns are put into place, and certain behaviors keep getting repeated.
Old white guys can be a funny bunch, can't they? The same anti-same-sex marriage, anti-affirmative action cadre can flower into the biggest supporters of 'equality' the minute they get a whiff of minority empowerment.
It's funny: over time, if you're fortunate, you build a nice career, and you have these interesting moments, and I would not, looking back, trade any of them - 'Red Tails,' '12 Years a Slave' and 'Undercover Brother.'
I'm the least confident person in so many ways. But I believed that if somebody gave me the chance to tell a story, I would tell a story [well enough] that the person who gave me the chance would get their money back.
I spent a ton of time alone. I was raised by a feminist; I had a terrifying father and oppressively scary and mean brothers. We had a farm. The rule was between breakfast and lunch you weren't allowed to make a sound.
In in some ways Jessica Jones and Supergirl are the opposite of one another, they both happen to have superpowers. But, in terms of the lack of parity, I think it is a good start and this is just the beginning I hope.
I can write two scripts concurrently, but I usually prefer to do one at a time. However, I also usually have 5 or 6 story ideas that are percolating in my head at any one time, so it can get a little crowded in there.
With 'The Tudors,' I had a huge amount of material, I mean so many books and so much stuff about what they really said. So, in a way it was kind of trying to strip it out and find the stories inside all this material.
The trick is the paradox - turning your story inside out. Now if it is something that appears to be of total normality and then suddenly turns inside out and is a different thing all together then that's fun to write.
The hope is what America represents to the world and has always represented - the hope for a better life and a better world. We have a duty to protect and support that hope with not just our words, but with our deeds.
I remember, when I was writing 'Traffic,' talking to top federal drug-enforcement officials and having them say they read it and found it very good and believable, except the scene where the girl describes her resume.
Henry Adams was scared shitless, politically, by the discovery that England isn't alien to a boy from Boston, but it was true, and it is true. It's a Boston and coastal Massachusetts thing. Henry Adams blocked it out.
There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups... but they're coming for ya. It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.
That's one of the benefits of having many seasons behind you, is you have this wealth of characters that you can reintroduce, and that have a history with your current regulars, so you don't have to start from scratch.