Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was on vacation with my family when I got the scripts for 'Wanderlust' and I was trying to work on the audition while I was on vacation. I remember a big gust of wind blew the entire script into the pool, so I had to dry it with a hairdryer.
I do read some of the scripts from America and, even though the themes or subject of the film is very interesting, and some of the scenes are very interesting, there is a tendency that they have to explain everything. There will be no dilemma.
Sometimes you can feel the gears shifting in scripts, like really trying to make something work that feels sweaty for whatever reason. I really enjoy reading material that just flows - it's definitely a skill to make something feel effortless.
When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left.
Doing a film and saying, I've done a really dark film and now I have to do a comedy... That's not me. If a script comes along and it's dark I'll absolutely do it and take the consequences. I'm not fussed about the image that goes along with it.
When you're shooting a network television show it inevitably starts airing a few episodes in, and depending on the ratings and the response from the public, you find yourself tweaking your performance or the scripts go in a different direction.
Now it's a fully realized production but for the fact that we're holding our scripts in our hand and some of us used them, and some of us didn't and you have to by union rules hold the script. You don't have to use them but you gotta hold them.
There are all these scripts where the women, if they're working, are prostitutes and lawyers with an angry streak who'll kill you. It's a reaction to women leaving their men and men being angry about it and saying it on some subconscious level.
I was creator and executive producer of 'The Brady Bunch' on TV. The stage version was done by others, but it was a repeat of the old scripts. The 'Gilligan' musical is a completely original work with all seven characters and 18 original songs.
With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.
'Criminal Intent' scripts are very good. Like others involved in 'Law & Order' stuff, I've come to appreciate the lack of 'soap,' if you will. The story dominates. You don't spend a lot of time with the psychological underpinnings of the police.
Where I thrive is with my hands on the keyboard or my pen on the paper. One of the things I get to do is I get to rewrite. I rewrite, and I work hard on my scripts. You can rewrite until you're 'perfect,' and that's something that's safe for me.
I was opposed to doing TV for a long time because I thought the quality of writing wasn't very strong, as opposed to film, but there's been a shift in term of the quality of scripts. HBO has attracted a tremendous amount of great writing talent.
I had written the script for Juno and apparently Steven Spielberg had read it. I can't just call him Steven, that's weird... Mr. Spielberg had read it and he liked it. He asked me if I would write this television show for him and I said, 'Yeah!'
I'm very lucky that I have my mother - who was such a great actress - and my brother as family. Of course, I take benefit of that fact. I read scripts with them. We have discussions and I take in their inputs and advice about how to play a role.
Oftentimes, you read these pilot scripts that come through for American work, and they don't sing to you. I've got to be honest, not many of them ignite the flame or give you that burning feeling of, 'Oh, God, I really want to be a part of this.'
I've been fortunate with my acting career. A lot of scripts come to me. I don't mind auditioning if something that requires that, but I haven't had to in awhile, which is a nice place to be 'cause I've been on quite a lot of auditions in my life.
I spend a lot of my time just developing material; or the company does. That material can come from a book, can come from a newspaper, can come from a discussion and sometimes it can come from a script that got passed over and is floating around.
I'm blessed with learning easily. I've always had a good thing about memorizing quickly, and I just leave the script kind of open somewhere, and as I walk by I'll just take a swipe at it and then go on about my business and pretty soon it sticks.
I'm open to all kind of scripts. As long as there's enough scope to perform, I'd take up the offer. In fact, before Yuvan and 'TT' happened, I got an opportunity to work with a top actor-director combination. But my height proved to be a setback.
As an audience member, those studio films are fun. I like an adventure tale, and I also like to go see something that has more of a social pulse. I like to keep learning and trying new things. And if the scripts are good, it doesn't really matter.
When you hear Treat's [ Williams] doing a movie, or you'd like to work with Treat again, you hope the script is good. And then you find out the script is good. You go and you do it for the fun of it. And you feel like you can be proud of something.
In 1998, the acting roles suddenly bottomed out. I was no longer getting scripts; even my agent stopped calling. When I finally got him on the phone to ask him what was going on, he paused, then said: 'Well, Christine, you're 45.' I got rid of him.
It's usually the exact same three things which are, the Scripts, the Director and the Role those are the three things I look for and really any two of them, If I get two of them that's usually enough, but definitely those are the things I look for.
I don't think writing stops until the film is out. In the edit, it's another draft. [The script] is the food for set, and then the set is food for the edit, and the edit is food for the screen. It's constant, and this is just the first stage of it.
I never examined what I did in any great detail because I thought it would spoil things. I never read the scripts at all carefully, and never wanted to know what was going on, because I felt that being a benevolent alien that's the way it should be.
Good scripts have always been, I think, hard to find. Good storytelling, good writing - it's just not easy. I have made it a point that - if I'm going to put the energy into doing this work - I will wait until I find something I'm really happy with.
Okay, I am happy with the way I look, but I have never, never, ever thought of myself as a 'pretty girl.' Honestly. When I read some of these scripts I'm sent, and they describe the heroine as 'incredibly beautiful,' I wonder why they sent it to me.
I feel like there's a dangerous culture among young actors of going to posey joints and socialising - not doing hard work. I don't want to go and hang out in Soho House L.A. That's literally my worst nightmare. I'd rather be at home reading scripts.
I mark a script like an exam, and I try not to do anything under 50 per cent. Similarly with the part. And also film is a peculiar thing, parts don't necessarily read in script form anything like as well as they can do when it comes to materialising.
I have been fortunate to get some really good scripts over the years and I haven't turned down anything that I regretted so far. And my manager who I've been with for over 25 years is very good at knowing what I should and shouldn't do a lot of times.
Today, most big stars want scripts to be written in a particular way, show them in a certain light. They want people to like them for various reasons. It's all about how much people will like me in this film than about whether it's a good film or not.
Yeah, in my scripts, I don't tend to describe landscape too clearly because I like to keep it really basic and sort of let people paint their own picture. I don't find it helpful to spend a page describing a setting, except for maybe a few key things.
I read a lot of bad scripts and weird television shows. I don't know. There's a lot of work out there I was reading at 14 years old and noticing this lack of thought. And then, reading 'Afterschool,' that's full of thought. It was bursting with ideas.
If you steal other people's characters, it doesn't work with the context of the scripts and what is written, so I wanted to make her my own. I was petrified, in the beginning, because it's such an iconic character, especially being a young lady myself.
I don't know if it's that the scripts are evolving or just that I'm getting older, but the characters become more interesting as you get older because you've lived more life at different stages. You've loved; you've lost; you have more of that journey.
If you are known to do something well, people want to see you do that. But what you choose to do is up to you. After 'Delhi Belly,' I got some 40 scripts - some on the same lines as 'Delhi Belly.' So, I guess people only get stereotyped if they want to.
In a script, you have to link various episodes together, you have to generate suspense and you have to assemble things - through editing, for example. It's exactly the same in architecture. Architects also put together spatial episodes to make sequences.
Ahana does lots of things; that's the problem with her. She is a fashion designer and is also writing some scripts. She doesn't want to do the regular commercial films. So she has decided that only if she really likes something, then she will take it up.
I had a very insightful friend who warned me back when I stopped reading scripts, 'It's easier to change directions while you're still moving.' If you stop, it's harder to get started again. I still don't think I made the wrong decision, but he was right.
I have never, for a single moment, been aware of pressure from anyone in television about how I dress, what my shape is or how I speak. I've always written my own scripts. I've always been the first to point out that I need to be fit. I need to look good.
When I read a script, I always - the first question I ask myself is, 'Is there something that I could bring to it that maybe the next guy wouldn't?' Because I've read a lot of very good scripts and thought there are people who could do this better than I.
Yeah, well I can't see a situation where I wouldn't at least re-write as a director something I was going to direct. At the moment, I wouldn't direct anything that I hadn't written. I can now say, as everybody else says, that it all depends on the script.
I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.
Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.
The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.'
My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood.
I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.
You have to read scripts and audition and develop relationships. It takes a long time to develop a body of work but over the last 25 years I guess I've done that many movies. In hindsight it may seem effortless, but there's a lot of work that goes into it.
I never think of myself as a big star. Getting good scripts is all I think about. I don't have a godfather or anyone to take care of me. To move forward, I have to be very careful in choosing the right scripts, the right director, and the right technicians.