Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never are you going to have a good movie.
Writing, yeah. Me and my friend Scott Bloom just finished the first rough draft of a script. It's taken us three years to do, but we finally got a first draft. And we'll see whatever happens with that.
Each film is different. Time Code was very quick - a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick - 16 days.
I believe you make a movie three times: once in the development process - putting the ingredients like the script, cast and crew together - once in the shooting process, and once in the editing process.
Every movie you attack has its challenges, and I was excited about the challenges presented by 'Deadpool.' I was a huge fan of the original, and I think, as a director, you have to put the script first.
Stupidly, in our industry, producers pay precious money to sign stars whom they might not even use in the film. Producers believe stars make hits; actually it is the script that makes a film successful.
If you think you don't want to play another psychopath, but the script is amazing, and the director is fantastic, and the story is incredible, then you may end up playing your third psychopath in a row.
It's really cool when the thing you are working on as a small team gets embraced by millions, but in the end, it's about your character and the script and your director and the rest of the cast and crew.
So you have to keep waiting and then they give you the script and it's terrible. Then you have to go to the rewrite and they're very upset because you didn't like it. I went through that for seven years.
I need to push myself. I'm not saying that I just want to do anything that's shocking, but when you have that combination of a script that's really beautiful and extremely shocking, it's exciting for me.
For me, it's always the script. The script which gives me the chance to do something new; that has been my prime objective ever since I started acting. There's nothing else that excites me more than that.
And when I'm on set, I'm just thinking about the script and of working. I think I've stayed focused on the work so much that I haven't really noticed my life start to change except for I've gotten busier.
I've learnt that I've had the best results from just trying to be me, trying to make a movie or TV show I want to see or write a script I want to read, and that's really all I can offer - being authentic.
Nowadays, the actors who say that they get plenty of scripts everyday but don't have time to go through them are nothing but big liars. The reality is - they don't even have a single script in their hand!
'The Fighter' was about a family struggling to overcome and fighting each other sometimes, and I went back and rewrote this script which I had written for my son initially because my son has mood disorder.
When I started acting, I did many films without even an idea of what the script was about. The film would start, and then we would discover what we were expected to do on the sets. Those days have changed.
'Unforgiven' is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, 'This is great, but I'd like to do this when I'm older.' So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.
The script is very good because the things that happen in it are very believable to me. It doesn't presuppose that the world has changed very much. You don't have to think that you're in a different world.
I used to once believe that the script is the most important thing, but now I also believe that the kind of people you are working with also matters a lot, and moreso, to see how the film will be promoted.
I mean, the first 'Back to the Future' is kind of a perfect script, I think, in terms of handling time travel the best. It depends on your definition. To me, that means it effectively uses it in the story.
As an actor, there are many confusing factors that can make you take or not take a decision. It becomes difficult. Your first and last checkpoint should be the story. I always read a script as an audience.
In television you don't have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it's even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.
Well, you know, I never want to feel like I have a set plan of what I'm supposed to do. I kind of like to go script by script, and if I like the character and like the story that's why I want to do a movie.
When I read a script, if I feel it's written with the idea of just bashing other people, then I shy away from it. Sometimes it's some guy coming out with his own hatred, and I don't need to be a part of it.
Movement should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing, for me it's all fitted to the action, to the script, to the characters.
The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part's not that great.
Unfortunately, the public might not know that we get a script usually two days before shooting. So sometimes I'm shooting an episode and don't even know how it's going to end because I haven't read that yet.
Filming a movie is different from a TV show because film is a lot quicker, you get to see the character progress and grow all in one script, and in television, you wait for a weekly update on each character.
I got it into my head that I was going to be starring in movies that I wrote, so that's what I did. I stopped acting in all things, and I wrote my first script, which was optioned a week after I finished it.
As an actor, you really want to respect and honor the script. You want to try to be in the moment and you also realize that you're one part of a bigger picture and when they call action, you have your dance.
You can't do things for money. You just can't act them. There's gotta be something about the script that you really want to do. I wouldn't do a job if I didn't think I could do the best work I possibly could.
It was, when I read it, I thought, such a beautiful script. I loved the story. I thought it was well handled. I thought it was even more moving because it was a true story and that made it even more poignant.
We did have a script, but it didn't consist of the routines and gags. It outlined the basic story idea and just a plan for us to follow. But when it came to each scene, we and the gagmen would work out ideas.
I would love to direct a western. I love taking photographs and I'm always fascinated with angles. Also, my father was a film editor, and I have a talent for thinking of things that aren't always in a script.
Since I was 12 or 13, I have been taking movie meetings finding a project right for me because I wanted to try it. Craig gave us the script - it was set in Wales, it is really British humour. I just loved it.
The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try do do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what's more interesting is always what's not being said.
For me anyway, until I was exposed to doing improvisation and walking onto a stage without any script, I would have never felt comfortable enough to walk into a room with someone like Larry David and audition.
I love making 'iCarly' - it's so much fun, and I love getting the script every week and not really knowing what insane thing I'm going to be doing. It's just like an adventure every episode; that's really fun.
I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting.
I think I remember from the offset I said, 'I've visited this territory. This isn't for me.' And then I read the script and I said, 'You know, this is completely something different. This is a whole new life.'
'ABCD - AnyBody Can Dance' and 'ABCD 2' has succeeded not merely because of dance, but mainly because of its good script. Viewers have loved the story, and that's why my movies have done well at the box office.
I'd love to do a sci-fi movie, a western, or an espionage thriller. But I'm not going to limit myself. If a good script comes along, I'm not going to discount it because it doesn't fit into one of these genres.
I really believe that when you're playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I'm pulling from things from my own life, then I think I'm being disingenuous to the character and the story.
I really would have been stupid not to have done it. It was also a film that was actually happening, I mean, Miramax was doing it, and it had a kind of legitimacy to it. And once I read the script, I was there.
Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept.
The script was just the best I'd read in a long time and I love the humor, which I wasn't expecting, and I like the fact that my six year old daughter can see the show without being, you know, protected from it.
To be honest, I never went to school for acting, and I never learned to break down a script. I took acting classes my whole life, but they never taught me anything about acting. They just taught me about myself.
Sometimes I want to do something that's really funny and other times I read an indie script that is going to be made for nothing but I want to do it because I think that I can connect with something in the story.
I didn't want to play a rancher. I didn't want to have a cowboy hat on; I wanted to get away from that in the things I do. But I read the script and fell in love with it. As hard as I tried to say no, I couldn't.
We all had our reservations about possibly overdoing it but, you know, the script was great. Basically it stuck to the formula that worked for the first two movies, and for that reason I think this works as well.