I can take scripts directly to actors. Agents don’t like to hear that.
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.
There are a lot of good stories out there, but I haven’t found too many great 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 love to read scripts. But I am very happy right now to say that I am a working actor. In this town of Los Angeles, the phrase ‘I’m an actor’ is overrated. So, I like to say, ‘I’m a working actor.’
I worry about my sides. I worry where everything goes. I worry that I’m going to be the leak. I give all my scripts back!
I was always writing scripts, and I had made several shorts, before and after film school. But I worked a variety of temp positions over the years.
If a star film does not have a good story, it will not run. This will make stars choose good scripts consciously.
I feel like I work on scripts for comedy as well as dramatic stuff the same.
I learned how to write television scripts the same way I have learned to do almost everything else in my entire life, which is by reading.
I never thought I was very good at developing material. I grew up at the BBC where they sent you scripts.
All the writers for ‘The Chi,’ they’re all phenomenal, so I’m just working on projects with them. They have great scripts.
When I first read the script a few years ago I thought it was one of the best written scripts I had ever read.
Females want other females to be really strong, so there are a whole lot of scripts that are basically just male parts renamed as a girl.
I want to do Indian films based on scripts with a universal appeal.
‘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.
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.
When you go to Marvel, they lock you in a room with the scripts; they really are that secretive.
I’ll literally pay three Hollywood readers who don’t know me to read my scripts under the radar and give cold comments. And at the early screenings of my movies, I’ll hand out questionnaires that can be filled out anonymously so people can be brutally honest because, to your face, they won’t be.
I’m always attracted to lower budget, not because it’s lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts.
It certainly isn’t like I’m reading scripts thinking I need to do something really different. But you want to stretch yourself and challenge yourself; that’s really the major turnon when you’re going into work.
I don’t have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, ‘Has Bob read ours yet?’
When I listen to scripts, I never ask who my co-star is – instead, I ask about the characters and the producers of the particular venture.
‘Groundhog Day’ was one of the greatest scripts ever written. It didn’t even get nominated for an Academy Award.
I liked to think I had written ‘scripts’ when I was in high school, but looking back at them, they were about thirty pages of wannabe-Mamet dialogue with a staple through them.
When I entered the industry, I wanted to work with good directors like Mani Ratnam and Gautam Menon; that’s why I did Tamil films. I realised later that I was not adding anything to the Tamil scripts and that it was a waste of time for me.
The scripts don’t come pouring in; I have to fight for every part.
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.
Sound is very important to us, even in our scripts. We write-in tons of sound effects.
It’s very unusual on ‘Game of Thrones’ for there to be a deleted scene because the scripts are pretty locked in. There’s rarely a reason to say, ‘Hey, we don’t need this scene.’
Facts are, directors are not thinking of me; they think I only act in my films, because they’re stupid. Or they think I’m a control freak, that I will try to, I don’t know, pimp their scripts and just change everything, which I will never do.
These kinds of scripts telling the stories of women are very rare.
I think, because I’ve been working for a while, I’ve been working since I was ten, I had the fortune of reading a lot, a lot of scripts.
Before ‘Whiplash,’ I’d had a string of failed scripts. I’d pour my blood, sweat and tears into them, and no one would like them.
The scripts of ‘The Wire’ are fantastic – the scripts of ‘Breaking Bad,’ the scripts of ‘Mad Men,’ the scripts of ‘The Sopranos,’ the scripts of ‘Battlestar Galactica.’ You could keep going on. They’re incredibly well written.
I don’t get a lot of romantic comedy scripts.
I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.
I think the fact that I have a solid head on my shoulders and a brain inside that head gives me an edge over my competitors. It helps when I am giving interviews, charting out strategy for my career and choosing scripts.
I get a lot of scripts, but they’re all for the same type of character.
Once I started selling scripts for a great deal of money – action scripts, no less, which people tend to pooh-pooh anyway – then I started to get some backlash. Which I didn’t mind.
I admit, I do a lot of projects, but it’s because I’m in a position now where I’m reading a lot more scripts and plays and things, and I’m really listening to offers and trying to think what I want to do at any given time.
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.
Reading scripts or commercial copy isn’t a problem for me, so I can really focus on the acting instead of it being secondary.
In terms of script, Bollywood should learn from South Indian scripts. Not talking about the fights and action, I am talking about the drama bit.
The problem with independent films is that they can be hit or miss. I’ve seen scripts that have blown me away. But there have to be all the right ingredients in place to make them work: the director, cast, publicity, distribution.
I never do any television without chocolate. That’s my motto and I live by it. Quite often I write the scripts and I make sure there are chocolate scenes. Actually I’m a bit of a chocolate tart and will eat anything. It’s amazing I’m so slim.
The characters I like offer a room for imagination about their untold past and future, even when the given scripts don’t explain enough about them.
As a director, I really have to rely on my first impression because I utilize that to best tell the story – that’s all the audience has. I let the scripts be my Bible.
I discuss my scripts and things I’m unsure of before I take any decision.
My partner Dan Ireland wants me to direct, and I read a lot of scripts – some good enough that I could see myself. But then it’s like, so what? Who cares? Let someone else direct it.
I am very selective when it comes to scripts.
I want to work with intelligent people and look for scripts that I think are intelligent and surprising.
I’ve read some scripts, but I don’t read as many books as I should.
It is a difficult one, as you get scripts where women are just objects.
I don’t read that many books – I tend to read scripts for projects.
I most enjoyed doing ‘Whites,’ a show BBC2 cancelled after one series. It had some beautiful, witty, charming scripts and was one of the most positive ensemble pieces I’ve done. I thought the end result was really special. I’m still confused about why it didn’t last longer.
I just want to work on good scripts.
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.
What I really plan to do is take the best scripts I get and consider them seriously. I can actually work as an actor and prepare a film as a director.
If you were an actress in a film that had been nominated for five Oscars, including one for yourself, you would expect to have scripts landing on the door step.
The majority of scripts I get are in the comedy genre.
I want to aspire to something like what Denzel Washington does, which is try to find scripts written for white actors – or Jodie Foster, who reads scripts for male actors.
