Top 22 Greg Berlanti Quotes

You have to always try to think about them like real people first, and not just heroes. They have to be real characters. As people do more and more superhero stuff, the characters are what distinguish it, just like in cop shows.

People don’t really see television shows and movies as different anymore. They expect the same quality.

TV’s job is to make you lean in, and a film’s job is to make you lean back.

I read some Marvel, but I was more of a DC guy. Particularly the Flash, Barry Allen. I latched on to him because I felt like him. You thought to yourself, ‘Well, you can’t really be Superman.’ You couldn’t really be Batman – Batman was a really dark figure. I identified with Barry Allen’s hopefulness.

That’s part of what always fascinated me about the Flash. Yes, he had superpowers, but he wasn’t superhuman. He was vulnerable. He could be hurt or killed. He’s not getting in a jet. He actually is the jet. So he had this gift, but with it came this risk. And I think that’s what makes the character relatable.

There were only a couple of Marvel characters I read. I read ‘Iron Man.’ I have a lot of those. And this was the time they tried X-Factor out. I was never an X-Men person, but I was like, ‘Let me check out X-Factor.’ I was more of a DC guy in general.

There is nothing I’ve wanted more, or waited for longer, than to be a father.

I love telling stories. Creating a character, a world, a whole universe out of nothing. That part I can’t get enough of.

Television is ultimately a business of failure. You try a lot of things, and most of it fails.

We did ‘Jack & Bobby’ in the middle of the Kerry/Bush election. It hurt it a little bit. No matter what we did, everyone thought we were advocating for one person over the other. The stuff I work on is more about the people.

I was a DC fan; The Flash was always my favorite character. He was sort of the most average guy amongst all of these icons, even though he had super speed, you know?

The thing that I probably enjoy the most and also am the best at in whatever art form I’m working in is being the protector of the emotional experience of the audience.

It’s one of the things that ‘Everwood’ – what makes a great ‘Everwood’ episode is when it makes you laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. From the first season, we’ve always had the chance to deal with death in a very real way, in a way that a lot of other shows can’t or don’t.

I have a Twitter profile, but I avoid red carpets and all that kind of stuff. I’d rather no one talk about me ever, and I just get to do my thing. I’m an introvert.

What I really appreciated about Obama in the last campaign was that he was not reactive, and we’re such a reactive culture… It takes a certain strength to be patient and have a plan.

In TV, in general, the more you try and please everybody, the less people you please.

I think a lot of what I’ve done is about people feeling as if they are part of the world but also not part of it at the same time. I don’t know whether that’s from being a gay kid, but I definitely think that resonates with me.

There were moments where Supergirl gets a thrashing in the pilot, where if a man in the ‘Flash’ or ‘Arrow’ pilot got beat up, people didn’t visibly wince. And I watched in testing, people in the audience really became uncomfortable by the fisticuffs and the action. But then, they were elated and cheering at the end.

If I had to give odds, I would say 30 percent of whatever good fortune I’ve had in this business has been luck, and 50 percent has been casting – so that’s 80 percent right there. And 20 percent is just working really hard and taking risks.

I didn’t happen to be one of those gay kids who knew definitively by the time I was 13.

For me, the romantic comedies I love are the ones that pay homage to the genre, but also find their ways to twist it and tweak it.

When we started ‘Arrow,’ there weren’t really a lot of superhero shows in general. And it was a burden on us because it was, ‘Are you going to fail or succeed?’ And now they’re everywhere.