It is always exciting to receive the scripts before we start on a new series.
My manager sent me the first two scripts for ‘True Detective,’ and I just thought they were so interesting and that the world they were depicting was so titillating to me.
I like taking up challenges. I prefer working with scripts that are different and veer from the tried and tested. So far, it’s always worked.
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.
I have always been attracted to good scripts and try hard to make characters as believable as possible. That means trying to figure out how they would react to situations, what they eat, think, and feel.
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.
I write my scripts on a whim, without worrying about plot points and graphs.
Even if it’s not always the best markup, what are Facebook and Twitter? They’re web standards with some scripts. They may not validate, but they’re still CSS layouts and simple markup, and that’s great!
I don’t have wild dogs chasing people with scripts away from my door. I get my share. I’ve done okay. But I usually do independent stuff because that’s mostly what I’m offered.
How can you turn down Marks and Gran? Their scripts are so rich in texture.
We can’t make movies without scripts, and there’s no cost to writing a script, so my advice to newcomers is do it yourself: Write your own script, shoot your shorts, edit your shorts.
What Bollywood lacks is scripts. A lot of the films are copies of western films.
I don’t see a difference between playing a performance capture role and a live action role, they’re just characters to me at the end of the day and I’m an actor who wants to explore those characters in fantastically written scripts. The only caveat is a good story is a good character.
I was drawn to gay parts because of their scripts, what the roles offered.
I sort of love reading the scripts and going, ‘Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.’
I’m reading scripts just like everybody else. Tin cup in hand, knocking on doors, trying to get a job. It’s tough. They don’t make as many films these days, and there’s a lot of guys that are fighting for jobs.
Certainly, you envy the guys that have done all kinds of things, a variety of good scripts and good directors. Then again, having worked with Cassavetes has satisfied a big part of that.
I don’t look for roles, for they come to me. Mind you, it’s not like I’m sitting in the middle of the floor with thousands of scripts around me. When work comes up, it’s good. I love it. Work doesn’t feel like work.
I did a lot of violent junk just because I needed the money – alimony movies, you might call them – and then I decided to start turning down the junk scripts and wait for something better, no matter how long.
I really respect those guys that get $250,000 for punching up scripts, because it’s an art form.
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.
‘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’ve seen so many scripts, and I want to do everything. Like with kiteboarding, you have to be fearless. I’m not scared.
Like dancers with choreography or actors with scripts, jazz singers could take material that was known, even loved, then risk interpreting and revising it. They could conceal even as they revealed themselves. Inflection, timing and tonality were their language, at least as much as words.
All of my scripts are based on other people’s novels. Generally, I consider myself as one who writes for theatre. I do not see film work as a continuation of writing for theatre. It is more of an interruption of the writing process.
I’ve always wanted to work in America because of those brilliant east-coast political movies of the ’70s and ’80s – great scripts, wonderful performances, gritty urban parable.
I lived in Bandra East, on the 12th floor. There was a small earthquake; I could feel the building shaking. I was halfway down the stairs when I realised I’d forgotten my laptop, and all my scripts were on it. If I lost the laptop, I’d lose all my work. I ran back up to get it!
At one point, I was greenlighting films and scripts that shouldn’t have been made based on the fact that they had that stamp of approval of an Academy Award winner. And the good news is I got to learn the real process of filmmaking – directing, storyboarding, writing.
Good scripts and interesting stories are hard enough to find.
I do try to look at scripts and keep an eye out for challenging roles.
With scripts I’ve always looked at them and thought about kids, you know? Thought about the world and the impact… I won’t do nudity and I never felt comfortable with that whole idea or things with huge sexual content – not my thing.
I am very happy to be working with so many talented directors and writers, who are penning scripts that are interesting for me.
Every actor has to deal with what’s on his plate, and I try to deal with doing the best work possible with the most challenging scripts. I don’t base it on whether it’s a feature film or a TV-movie or cable.
We all sit in front of our mics and our scripts lay on music stands. Then the silliness begins!
I’m not saying no to anything, at least as far as reading scripts. I don’t care if it’s television or films but, personally, I would say I’d like to establish myself more in film.
There isn’t really a stylistic recipe for fonts to make them particularly suitable to be translated into different scripts.
I just need good scripts, good films, and I am glad I am doing them.
I’m on Facebook anonymously. I wanted to see how people use it, what’s going on there, but I personally didn’t want to be on it because everybody in the world tries to get to you with scripts.
Some scripts you feel like everything is precious.
For every three scripts that you get through, one will be made, and that doesn’t even necessarily mean that they’re going to cast you in it.
When you get scripts and you really enjoy reading them, you know it’s a good project.
I still read scripts, and if something great comes along, that’s great… but this is my day job. The Row is where I go every day.
I was really surprised to see how critical the Malayali audiences are. It is really overwhelming that people genuinely want good scripts and do not miss a chance to applaud good scripts.
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.
I’m waiting for better scripts to come my way, especially because I’m aware that there are people who are waiting to see me come back; and I don’t want to disappoint them.
I am open to all scripts and I am not very picky.
In Hollywood, they create banks of scripts, whether they are used or not.
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’d never properly done pilot season in America. I did it for just a couple of weeks, a couple of years ago. Usually, you get pilot scripts and the initial script quality isn’t there.
There are two separate scripts for ‘Mockingjay’ parts one and two. It’s definitely one story, but there are two totally distinct and separate scripts.
Even though I am a lifelong ‘Doctor Who’ fan, I’ve not played him since I was nine. I downloaded old scripts and practised those in front of the mirror.
You would not believe some of the scripts I have seen. I have read something like 160 that I’ve rejected, and I keep them all, for posterity.
I think I have been stereotyped as an action director in Hollywood, so all I got were the action scripts.
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 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.
