Scripts Quotes - Page 29

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Four of my films have been remade in Tamil and Telugu. Although I haven't seen any of these remakes, I do feel happy that I've been a part of good films. It's nice to know that some scripts still leave behind a mark after their theatrical run this way, so I have to admit, it is quite flattering.

Movies, to a large extent, stand or fall on the strength of their scripts. But a documentary is a collection of found objects: fragments you've collected, accidents of interview and happenstance, pieces of stock footage that surface in the course of six to nine months of research and production.

I didn't watch any films. This film, The Proposal, had it all in the script. Once all the pieces, once I met Anne Fletcher and I knew what she wanted and that we wanted the same things, and once they said Ryan Reynolds was on board and once the casting came together, you saw what it wanted to be.

My scripts, they're pretty serious. I basically just describe stuff. I don't put too many notes and letters to the editors. But when I wrote 'KGBLT,' in parentheses I wrote, 'Well this is the best thing I've ever written. It will all be downhill from here. I'm so sorry for the rest of my career.'

For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always be fiction, and especially novels, but I'm a writer... I write poetry and essays and criticism and I'd love to write a whole play, and sometimes I even write scripts.

About half the scripts sent to me feature characters I just can't identify with, particularly one-dimensional businessmen or, if it's a comedy, some absurd 10-year-old Japanese stereotype, some role related to IT or business... There's no point in getting mad about it; it's just the way things are.

I made a point to not read too far ahead with the first six or seven episodes of any show. I would read the outlines, but I didn't really want to read scripts too far in advance because I didn't really want to get ahead of myself, at all. To be honest, I don't have the time to come up with theories.

You have a lot more leeway to be contradictory playing a character than most of the scripts have in them. That's how all actors are. We have so many different sides of ourselves and we're so different, in meeting with different people. The audiences relate more to that and find that more believable.

Every year I hear people complain that the quality of screenplays and movies is declining. In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.

It's true, I'm the youngest, highest-grossing French director. I have a few records, but no one knows or simply doesn't care. That's good, because I like that. Ultimately, I want to keep working, making a lot of movies, and get better at it. It's about finding great scripts and bringing them to life.

I had been quite judicious about the scripts I was reading, but nothing was really taking my fancy until I pulled this script out: 'Lucifer.' I have to say, within about three or four pages, I thought it was hilarious; I laughed out loud a couple of times and knew this is the one that I wanted to do.

I wrote [Collateral Beauty] on my own. I didn't get paid to write it. I didn't sell it as a pitch. It was an idea I had that I really, really felt needed to be in script form before showing it to anyone in the industry because of the uniqueness of the idea, and the weirdness of the idea, to be frank.

I end up improvising in almost everything to some degree, 'cause it's often necessary on movies. The script is one thing, and it's this kind of theory of what you're going to do, and then you get there on the day and you realize, "Oh, the script is not appropriate to this room, the door's over here."

If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need the script. I could build the house, but I have to know how.

I do whatever [comedies] I'm attracted to. It's like the woman who stands out in the crowd, who for some reason you notice, that's the one you're supposed to dance with at that time in your life. That's just what it is with scripts... they find you when you're emotionally in the right place to do them.

I love reading different scripts and helping create different looks, different environments. Sometimes you go to meet a director over a particular script, and they'll say, 'I want you to do this because I want it to look like Shawshank,' and I'm like, 'Well, I'm not that interested in doing that again.'

Pilot season's such a strange time. You get such a concentrated amount of scripts. A lot of them become white noise after a while. When something really pops, it becomes apparent very quickly. I'm quite instinctive about that. I know, normally by about 10 pages in, whether I want to do something or not.

I'm not one of those shoppers where I go to a store and I'm like, trying it on, I'm not sure, 'Oh, can you put this on hold?' No. It's either love it or hate it. And it's the same way with scripts. I usually know within the first 10 pages. If I don't latch into it by then, then it's not going to happen.

I get bored with unintelligent scripts. When I read the first page and I can tell what is going to happen, I know I don't want to make the film. It's two months work and I would get deeply bored. I would even prefer to do something that didn't work at the box-office, so long as it kept my interest alive.

I think I read films having grown up around the pre-production and post-production aspect of the filmmaking medium, a lot more than most young people who are in acting would have experienced. I do think about scripts in a different way. I can't just read a script as an actor. I don't know how to do that.

A lot of people have an opinion on scripts, but they aren't equipped to diagnose what the problems are. You realize that scriptwriting is such a specialist subject, but because it's so common, everyone thinks that they can talk about that. I think it's something that writers only know, that they can see.

I reject the word 'script' entirely-at any rate in the usual sense. I prefer the old usage-usually scenario-which it had in the Commedia dell'Arte, meaning an outline or scheme: it implies a dynamism, a number of ideas and principles from which one can set out to find the best possible approach to filming.

I've read a hundred fantastic scripts that didn't pan out as films, and I completely put that on the directors. I've also read some mediocre scripts that have ended up being amazing, and I credit that to the directors. They're the storytellers. If you don't have a good storyteller, you really have nothing.

Sometimes I feel like doing smaller budget stuff. When I did 'Young Adam', for instance, I'd come out of 'Black Hawk Down' and 'The Island', and I really wanted to be on a small film set. I wanted to be on something intimate and small again, and then 'Young Adam' cropped up in a pile of scripts I was sent.

Now I can broadcast to an audience of several million people on the 'Today' programme. I can talk about the day's news. But on radio, believe it or not, we have notes and scripts. And while we might ad lib the odd wryly amusing asides, they come at the frequency of a suburban bus. About one every 90 minutes.

I never learned to be a writer. I never took screenwriting courses. I never read anyone's scripts. As a writer, my only guiding principle has been to write about things that scare me, write about things that make me feel vulnerable, write about things that will expose my deepest fears, so that's how I write.

If you are a certain kind of hands-on learner and have been in a writers room and know how scripts get made, and you know what pre-production is, then mostly it's making sure the actors get what they need, and you are providing creative oversight while allowing room for everyone else to own the material, too.

I'll read, like, ten scripts, and then sometimes if I'm lucky, there will be two or three scripts that I like, and sometimes they'll all be dramas, or they'll all be comedies, or there will be two dramas and a comedy, and then I'll go for whatever. If I have to audition, I'll audition. If it's an offer, great.

I think it took me seven years before I got the script for 'Frozen River.' That's the movie I had been looking for my whole career. When I read that, I knew I had to shoot that movie - that it'd be a game-changer. It was one of those scripts where I read it, and I was like, 'This movie could get into Sundance.'

I like to wake up late, around 11 A.M., especially if I have been out the night before. Then I go to brunch with either my friends or my girlfriend. I then like to just chill out: read the papers, read some scripts and then take it very easy. If it's sunny, I go for a walk with my dog, Niles, in the countryside.

I always loved putting on shows - when you're the youngest of seven and five are older sisters, you've got to get noticed somehow! I did puppet shows and magic shows... even ventriloquism. My doll's name was 'Dan,' and I used to write these scripts, and my schoolmate hid under the table and supplied Dan's voice.

When good things come in, my agent calls or sends me the script. But I allow them to sort through the offers so that I am not just sitting and reading everything because honestly, sometimes the scripts that appeal to me are projects that are not good projects, but I just really like the script or the characters.

My agent asked if I fancied Robin Hood and I thought: 'Yeah, why not?' I hadn't watched it, to be honest, but I'd seen bits and knew it was really popular Saturday family viewing with heaps of action. I thought it would be great fun. I was up for a good old play-fighting and the scripts were terrifically exciting.

A lot of things I have turned down ended up being a big embarrassment. Like that script, 'The Beaver.' I thought that was one of the worst scripts I had ever read. But everyone said, 'Ooh it's on the Black List.' Yeah, well, good for it. They're a bunch of idiots. I saw the final film, and there were no surprises.

Soon after 'Paruthiveeran' I was flooded with scripts that were almost the same as the award-winning film. I had offers from Malyalam, Telugu and Kannada filmmakers. But I had to be firm and in fact I realized that now I had to be more careful with my choice of films because I have raised the audience expectations.

It takes a very long time to read a script. I'll look at a script, but there are so many scripts. I remember once being at the dentist, and the guy was doing my teeth and telling me about the screenplay he'd written and he said, "Will you read it?" And I said "Oh...okay." And it turns out that it was about a dentist!

'Carrie Diaries' was one of the scripts that was sent my way, and it was instantly something I wanted to work on. It was very charming, and there's a lot of heart to it. It was touching and nostalgic and relatable, and it validates so many coming-of-age issues in an open and honest way. I think it speaks to real life.

I know firsthand how much work has usually gone into a screenplay, so if there's something that rings false or a line that I would think would need a tweak or something, I will think long and hard before I even recommend changing it. In that sense, I'm very faithful to the scripts that I get - if they're good scripts.

With any mannerisms or dialogue, you have to be careful you're not just serving yourself. What happens with improving is a lot of times, if you're not in the framework of the script, you're just making everything easier so it fits you. It's much more interesting and challenging to go to it, rather than it coming to you.

My personal experience has been that in my 25 years of writing, I have not been asked to do more than four or five commercial one-shot scripts. These were performed on major national hook-ups but produced for me no immediate additional jobs or requests. One script for BBC was done around the world with an all-star cast.

As she lifted the glittering strand of diamonds from the box, a small slip of paper fell out. She caught it as it wafted toward the floor. Four words in ancient script, an arrogantly slanted scrawl. Accept these, accept me. Well, she thought, blinking, that was certainly direct and to the point. -Adam's note to Gabrielle

A good script is like a work of art in itself. I've read hundreds of scripts, and good ones are very rare. If the writer has something to say, and a voice, and a plot that matches character, and an emotional trajectory that works, then I'd be an idiot to fool around with it. It's just that few scripts ever are like that.

There are elements to my faith which are echoed very closely in the scripts that come through. I read certain moments, and I'm able to say, 'Yes, I recognize that. I champion that. I ally myself to that idea.' Then there are times where I don't. My feeling is, at this stage in my life, that it will be an ongoing struggle.

It was a sort of organic thing. I never went, 'I must be an actress.' I thought, 'I think I could do this. I think I could be good at this.' I would just get sort of hungry when I read something I thought I can do well, whether it was in books or in scripts or if I saw a certain movie. It sort of happened quite naturally.

Often when you get a really good script, and you receive the new pages, you see that the entire thing has been dumbed down. Films in the '30s and '40s, that were huge blockbusters, were very sophisticated in their language, and the ideas they brought. There were no questions about whether the audience would get it or not.

I feed on other people's creativity, photographers, artists of every kind. Sometimes a feeling that you get listening to a song can be so powerful. I've wanted to write whole scripts around what I felt just listening to a piece of music. I think music is important, and surrounding your visual field with stimulating things.

You can treat musicians like actors - you give them a roadmap but don't tell them what to do, and let their personal style or interpretation speak in the piece. And in both film and music, you create a space where people feel safe to do their best. You treat songs like scripts that can be interpreted a lot of different ways.

I don't think any actor has the luxury of knowing exactly what scripts are going to turn out well and what ones aren't. It would be wonderful to have that particular skill, and maybe people like Tom Cruise have it more than most, but you go into each project hoping that a good, if not great, film will come out the other end.

I feel that I can't do certain things that have sent to me, scripts, because I think that really - I've been June Cleaver for so many years, because we went back, you know, and we did - 20-year hiatus we had - and we went back and made 105 new ones. And so I really feel very strongly that there are certain things I won't do.

When I see an image in my head that compels me, where there's this mystery about what's going to happen next or could happen next, I'll be intrigued. There are so many scripts that you read, and you know exactly what's going to happen, and there aren't too many where you can't tell within the first 20 pages where it's going.

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