I've never played a manipulative, drug-smuggling lesbian before. For me, it's pushing me in an area that's great. There are days when I'd read the script and I'd be like, "Oh, God, I can't believe I have to do that."

When we started in the early '60s, football had a little bit of a tradition. But, they didn't have a mythology. And NFL Films, through our music and our scripts and our photography, created a mythology for the sport.

I don't think comedy is something you learn. I think it's something that's either there or it's not. When I read a script, I have to see the funny, and if I can see it's funny, it helps me to be able to transmit that.

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.

When you go on a movie set, there used to be one woman: script supervisor. Now they were in all capacities in addition to heading studios. So that's the biggest change of all from the early '50s, when I first started.

We were all thrown together on this show very rapidly, there was casting then a few days later a meeting where we all got to read the scripts and meet each other. Literally days after that we were on our way to Dallas.

Lots of things are hard work, but I think writing, for me, after I started acting at 13 years old. I like writing now much more than I do acting only because, well, partly because the scripts that are offered are junk.

When I'm working on the scripts or working with the other actors or rehearsing with the director, and when the director is cutting the movie, and we've shot the scene, the director is not looking at the visual effects.

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.

For me, when my agents and reps send me a script, I read it through, just for the story purpose of it, and then I read it again to think of my character and see if it's something that I'm interested in bringing to life.

I was deliciously happy filming True Blood. I even kept all the scripts in my office, which I never do with any script. Although I did shred them all in one go when the series finished; it seemed like a ritual, somehow.

I am ready to go super bold. I would like to thank not just my husband but even my in-laws, who have had no problems with my bold characters. You may find it surprising that we all discuss my scripts on the dining table.

I think the fact that I have a solid head on my shoulders and a brain inside that head gives me an edge over my competitors. It helps when I am giving interviews, charting out strategy for my career and choosing scripts.

I don't know if the scripts are changing so much. I mean, I've been working for almost 25 years and made over 40 films and I worked with my first female director, on a feature, "Planetarium". And it's still the only one.

I have a lot of scripts that come my way, and some of them take a bit longer to read than others. There are a lot of things that I have to pass on because I'm just not into it, and sometimes the story is slightly forced.

I don't like violence, in reel or real life. I prefer the quiet, beautiful genre of movies where everything is rosy and pleasant. I stay away from extreme sadness in my scripts and, somehow, I can't make movies for kids.

I'm basically a writer, it's who I am. I direct and I like theatre directing very much. But I've done 17 movies, they don't say 'Let's get Garry, he'll make a helicopter shot,' they say 'Get Garry, he'll fix the script.'

The thing I loved about this movie [Waitress] when I read the script was that it was exactly the kind of film that I love to watch. It's not just funny, it's serious, just when you need it to be and true to life in a way.

What I mostly do is take the script, analyse the hell out of it, see what's in there, see what kind of person I'm dealing with, and then forget I'm playing a father and just play a person who exemplifies all those things.

Don't allow old traditions to become permanent mental scripts for managing your life in the present. Reason: you will not be able to transform yourself to think differently and be better as you grow with age and maturity.

Although Bill Finger literally typed the scripts in the early days, he wrote the scripts from ideas that we mutually collaborated on. Many of the unique concepts and story twists also came from my own fertile imagination.

I was deliciously happy filming 'True Blood.' I even kept all the scripts in my office, which I never do with any script. Although I did shred them all in one go when the series finished; it seemed like a ritual, somehow.

The writer must be a participant in the scene... like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character.

As a director who does not like to write, I am always looking for scripts that I can contribute to through directing. I don't want to do the same thing that the writer is doing; I want to add an angle or highlight a theme.

I am fortunate that I get sent scripts and get to meet people I would never have met had I not done 'Harry Potter.' But I feel I had to come out of that show and prove that I am not a one trick pony and can do other stuff.

I wrote another wrestling film script. And we finished the shooting [with Lloyd Phillips]. But Henry Winkler came out with his own wrestling film, which did poorly. So the studios passed on ours, and it never got released.

I admit, I do a lot of projects, but it's because I'm in a position now where I'm reading a lot more scripts and plays and things, and I'm really listening to offers and trying to think what I want to do at any given time.

I'm always attracted to lower budget, not because it's lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts. It's the scripts that tend to be the small arthouse film that tend to be more actor-led and character driven.

I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.

Whether it is the cavemen in the caves thousands of years ago, Shakespeare plays, television, movies and books, stories and characters take us on a journey. All I do is tell those stories without scripts and without actors.

I sift through the scripts offered to me and see what is worth attempting, because I think there is no point in wasting your time in doing something which you are not too keen on. I try and do whatever I feel interested in.

The reason that some motion-capture films don't work is if the scripts are not good, and the characters aren't engaging, then you don't believe in the journey, and you're not connected to it. It's not the technology's fault.

[Before I Go To Sleep] script was a great journey with all the twists and turns that were kind of unexpected. I had to finish the script, and I thought if we can emulate this in the film, it's going to be a really good film.

While we're working on the script, I never see any films. I make it a point because I don't want to get distracted. I don't want to be influenced, and before I know it, have somebody say, "My God, she plagiarized that line."

Once, I optioned a novel and tried to do a screenplay on it, which was great fun, but I was too respectful. I was only 100 pages into the novel and I had about 90 pages of movie script going. I realized I had a lot to learn.

I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.'

You start out with scripts pre-written, with no specific actor in mind, so you've got to build a character on top of that foundation. It's not just lifting words off the page, it's constructing a history around them as well.

When you're developing a story, for me anyway, it's all so important to get the script right, especially when you're telling the story of an icon. You've got to get it right. Otherwise, you'll get killed by critics and fans.

I don't really have a structured path of wanting to say, 'This is what I'll do next.' I'm just going to read a bunch of scripts and see which one I love. There are so many things I would love to play, in all different genres.

The Cyrillic and Greek scripts in particular have an alien beauty in their unfamiliar letterforms. Five weights of stroke thickness create subtle variations in light and dark that reflect the emerging and fading of the stars.

Certain scripts require an ensemble cast. I'm absolutely fine with that. I will not deprive myself of the chance to be part of a good film because of insecurities or fear of losing my market. But my role must be well-defined.

A script is just a script. A good script can be a bad movie, so easily. It's the process that makes it good. You need a good script, don't get me wrong, but you need all those other things to make a good movie. You really do.

It's hard to make a living as a novelist. My first novel 'Tapping the Source' made quite a splash in Hollywood, and people started asking if I wanted to write scripts. I quickly realized I could make a lot more money that way.

I've got a big closet of scripts, and a big stack of scripts on the side of my desk, because you get a whole bunch. Nothing's going to be perfect, and I realize that; but I am a perfectionist, so you go through a lot of stuff.

I was at the National Film School and was a cinematographer there. I got quite a lot of experience on documentary film-making and with directors who were interesting - maybe they weren't using scripts or were using non-actors.

The scripts of 'The Wire' are fantastic - the scripts of 'Breaking Bad,' the scripts of 'Mad Men,' the scripts of 'The Sopranos,' the scripts of 'Battlestar Galactica.' You could keep going on. They're incredibly well written.

Sometimes my interest in working on a film is not always dictated specifically by the character. Sometimes it's simply about wanting to be a part of a vision that I love, or a script that I love. I find exciting and gratifying.

I don't get that many scripts. Back in Australia, I've pretty much done my own shows and really no work outside of that. It's only now that I'm starting to read some Hollywood film scripts, and I've read some really great ones.

To do stories that I love, scripts that I love, and work with people who are passionate about them and passionate about projects - whether that's on stage or television or film, that's the kind of environment I want to work in.

I know what it is like to fear violence. I understand the adrenalin rush that comes before violent confrontations. I write my scripts from an emotional point of view and direct so the audience can experience this adrenalin rush.

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