I think really good drama comes down to real human emotion. That’s what makes us all tick, and that’s what I’ve always been drawn to when it comes to scripts is real human emotion and dealing with that.
I was a judge for the 2014 NYMF season. I’ve done it for a few years. They send you a certain amount of scripts and scores, and you rank them.
I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I’ll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist.
I won’t read scripts because I have a limited amount of time. Why should I help other people do lame stuff when I can just go out and put on lame stuff of my own?
I never wanted to be an actor. Because when you’re an actor, you depend on other people to come to you with scripts. You can’t create your own. Unless you are a Raj Kapoor, who was a producer-director.
Right now I’m doing four shows at a time, trying to read four outlines every week, four scripts every week, and watching four rough cuts; it’s a lot of good work. It’s fun to do it, but it does wear you out.
Sometimes reading scripts is terrible.
I’ve got my own TV stuff on the go, and it’s all a bit oddball – it’s one-offs, and I can do what, when, and how I want it, really. I don’t have any scripts or people telling me to do stuff twice.
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.
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’ve been so lucky – I worked with Jason Reitman twice, who has always been a really strong advocate for my voice, and has always really respected the scripts that I’ve brought him and is just the coolest.
During the ’90s, a lot of us in the indie film world were not making our money off our movies. We were screenwriters doing scripts for hire for studios.
After ‘Ishq Brandy,’ I was either not getting good scripts or not good characters.
I met Rajini sir after ‘Jigarthanda,’ and he said he liked my film. He told me I could approach him whenever I had a good idea. I had never thought he would listen to scripts from new directors. After the meeting, I wondered, ‘Should I take his words seriously or not? Should I write something?’
I don’t believe in closed scripts; I think that they should be open.
In the last 10 to 12 years when things were not going my way, I was just writing scripts. I have a bank of 10 to 12 scripts for web-series, films and short films.
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.
I have never turned to my girlfriend and said, ‘Oh, okay, babe,’ and I see it in scripts all the time.
Reality TV finds talented people. There are no scripts. The editing is what it’s all about. Great editing makes those shows.
Dhanam’ is one of the interesting scripts that I came across. It centers around me.
I try to find scripts of stories that kinda celebrate the human condition… let’s talk about the tough world out there and the human spirit overcoming adversity.
I write scripts, I read scripts, I meet people who chat about their scripts. So honestly, I don’t feel bad if I don’t act in a film, as long as people are making great films.
I love travelling, and most scripts have been written while I have been travelling.
There aren’t enough good scripts.
There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.
In 1990 there were about 300 scripts being written demanding the release of Nelson Mandela. And suddenly we watched Mandela walking out of prison. So those scripts had to be destroyed.
There are scripts when you fall so much in love with your character. And if you are lucky and offered this part, you should not tempt your fate and go to the greatest extent to be/to play this character. If you have an opportunity to do that and you do not, it’s shameful.
I read a lot of scripts, so I know by page 25 if I like it or not.
I know a lot of people in the business recommend the many Story Structure seminars being offered here, but I point to them as the single biggest contributor to lousy scripts.
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.
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’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.
Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I’m writing episode seven now and couldn’t tell you what happens in episode eight.
I get many scripts and films, but I refuse most of them because I have done such roles before.
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’ve always looked at filmmaking as a lifestyle. There is no decision of when you go to work. It’s a way of life: you’re thinking about scripts; you see things and think, ‘That could be interesting’… I don’t think about my work as, ‘Today I’ll work on this, this and that.’ It just comes to me.
It eventually comes down to the right timing and right scripts. Some may have two to three releases a year, some may have just one – luck changes with every Friday release.
I watch the TV or learn scripts while on the elliptical – need to get back on it!
I was reading scripts, doing coverage, for CAA. Reading hundreds and hundreds of scripts across the board, from blind submissions to ‘Brokeback Mountain’. It was not always a pleasant task but something, in hindsight, I’m glad I did.
I have, for a few years, been writing comedy prose – short pieces for my blog – because I found it to be a good way to write while I was on a TV show. It was different enough from my scripts that it felt like a break, but it still was comedy and very fun. I like to do comedy!
I’ve been a writer since I was 13. I’ve been writing scripts and having pitch meetings. So, when I do see people like Brit Marling getting things done, it lets me know that it’s possible. It basically just tells me, ‘Dude, get to work!’ For some reason, I think that I’m not doing enough work.
My deal with Marvel is I have a consulting deal with them as well as a contract to make ‘Avengers.’ That means I’ll read all the scripts, I’ll look at cuts.
In school, I used to write scripts and all that good stuff.
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.
I’ve been working with a lot of people out in Hollywood on writing scripts, screenplays, directing, producing, and making music.
I never turn down scripts without good reason. If I did, I would probably never work.
You’re always looking for good scripts and when they’re not always forthcoming you go mad.
I don’t really want to just play the girlfriend or the love interest. I get so many scripts like that, and – not to moan, because I’m really fortunate – but I just look at those scripts, and my heart sinks a little bit because I think there’s so much more to us than that.
Girls in scripts are often pretty but brainless, or geeky and no one likes them, so it’s great to find richer roles. Chalk and cheese aspects of people are very interesting to play.
Sometimes you just dread reading scripts; it’s like the chef who doesn’t want to cook at home.
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 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.
