House was the first film where I had no influence on the script. I had to buy the script with the game rights.
I really enjoy playing villains, whether they’re realistic like Switchblade Sam or whether they’re a bit more over-the-top like Kruge in ‘Star Trek III’ or Judge Doom in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit.’ It’s sort of a license just to be as bad as the script allows you to be – you can just go for it and have fun.
When I auditioned for ‘Pitch Perfect,’ I didn’t know it was a singing movie. I didn’t read the script. I go to the audition, and I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s a baseball movie.’ But then I’m reading the lines, and I’m like, ‘This doesn’t seem like a baseball movie.’
‘One Tree Hill’ was my first television experience, so naturally I was nervous initially. There is no rehearsal, you get your script a few days ahead, and you work. I was also the youngest actor, 13, on set at that time, but it was amazing to be able to ‘learn the ropes’ with such a supportive group of people.
Our audience is all the girls who made Britney a huge star. Those are the girls who bought the book. I didn’t read the book at first. I read the script just to see what I would think of the script and I really liked it.
I never really do much research before signing a film. It is just the script and character that I concentrate on.
Sometimes I get a script that says, ‘Only you can play it.’ But I like roles in films with little moments – a hand movement in ‘Melancholia.’ I don’t like the big speeches – the ‘Oscar speech.’ I like to do unusual things on screen.
When you see a bad romantic comedy, you see the script, the director, and the actors trying to create this warmth and this pathos and this feeling that you care about them. That cannot be manufactured – it’s either there or it isn’t.
You can tell if you’re going to be into a script within the first five or ten pages – if I’m not completely engaged by page 20, I just have to give up on it.
I do actually dabble in a bit of poetry! And I’m yet to pen a script, but it is something that I’ve been telling myself I want to do.
This was a really big opportunity. This script was even mediocre. The idea was great, but Jay came on with his guys made it great and very specific. It all came together well.
I’ve been fired from a situational comedy with a script they wrote specifically for me because of my voice.
I got involved in script development from the beginning. It was nice to see how a film gets made right from the beginning. It was quite hands-on for me.
When I get cast, I always flip to the end of the script to see if my character gets beaten up or killed.
When you have a lot of people playing different characters, you need to do justice to every character and bring meaning to their presence in the script.
I usually don’t choose any of my Tamil films depending on the heroes but give priority to the script.
Each film is different. Time Code was very quick – a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick – 16 days.
Everything is a rejection of you, not your product, or your script, or a cosmetic. It’s you.
I’ve never ever read a script. I really must read Macbeth, because I was in it once. I got a lot of laughs in that, I can tell you.
I definitely have to know every detail of a script and analyse its potential before I think further because if the director is the captain, then the script is the ship.
When I wrote ‘Kidulthood,’ I didn’t even know there was going to be a ‘Kidulthood.’ I just wanted to test myself to see if I could write a script.
My very, very first professional job was when I was 19 years old – I got a job doing an educational industrial film on Shell Motor Oil’s oil products. I really put my heart into it – I wrote a script for it, I did a lot of research.
I think the first thing I consider is whether I like the script. Once that is done, the next thing I look for is my part in the movie. Many a times you come across good offers, but the part they are offering might not be challenging. So, I don’t take up that film.
Bush is a very poor impromptu speaker. He does fine in small groups but when speaking without a script in front of large groups or answering questions he wasn’t prepped for, he has problems.
With proper acting, I don’t know what I would play – I got sent a script for a play, and it said in the notes that my proposed character was ‘hideously fat and ugly’. That made my day. I mean, I do know I am no oil painting.
For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn’t have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.
Hopefully, as I get older in the business, I make my choices more accurately, and I perhaps know from either the script or the first meeting that it isn’t going to work.
If I want to kiss, I shall kiss. If I am told that a lovemaking scene is integral to the script, I will consider it.
I’d like to do the young cadet thing again for sure, but that’s why I wanted to do this, to see if I could do it. I took the scenes out of the script and put them together and read them as one little arc, story and that seemed to work.
It’s all about the script. I don’t want to do something which makes me feel uncomfortable. It should suit my image and age.
Could I have worked under a system where there were Draconian controls on my creativity, meaning budget, time, script choices, etc.? Definitely not. I would have fared poorly under the old studio system that guys like Howard Hawks did so well in. I cannot.
Finally, when the money was high enough, the script suddenly revealed itself as being very clear to me.
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Howard Minsky had gotten the script to her agent prior to my involvement.
I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That’s very important.
I think it’s incumbent on actresses to bring something else to the part which isn’t in the script.
I haven’t heard anything about a reunion show for Sisters. But if the script was good I would do it.
And of course to work with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and work with a wonderful, beautiful script directed by Nancy Meyers, it was really for me a dream come true.
The truth is, a director wins an Oscar for a writer’s script and actors’ performances.
It’s difficult when you have to turn down a tremendous amount of money because you don’t like what the script is saying and you don’t have any money.
They’re naughty, all those writers – they mess around with people. I know James Gandolfini got a bit fed up on ‘The Sopranos’: if he said anything in front of a writer, told them a story from his life, it could make its way into the script.
With comedy especially, it feels like such a clear-cut thing to be a writer-director. There is so much nuance and tone in a comedy that it’s hard to contextualise it in a script.
Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.
The difference between a movie star and a movie actor is this – a movie star will say, ‘How can I change the script to suit me?’ and a movie actor will say. ‘How can I change me to suit the script?’
I’d love to be involved in the process of adapting a book to a script, but that’s simply not my job.
In ‘W,’ I did not change a word in the script. I have never spoken this much in other series. I just stick to whatever is written. I always carry the script with me and read it before I sleep.
When I read a script, I have to see the funny, and if I can see it’s funny, it helps me to be able to transmit that.
I’m sticking to the script, I’m putting that organic feeling back in the game.
I would love to do another hockey movie. There are a lot of people in Hollywood looking for the right hockey script.
There’s a rumor that there may be an attempt at organizing a possible script for a series on my life, which, when you look at my police record, you’d have to have more than one hour to tell the story.
There are a lot of roles in Shakespeare, basically. If I feel that the script is a movie, I would be interested in doing any role of Shakespeare’s.
Generally, Hollywood makes the same stories over and over. I’ve never wanted to do the same thing twice. If a script doesn’t surprise me in some way, I simply can’t commit to the project.
It slightly depends on your perspective, sort of how you look at these things, but when I sit down to write a script, I’m not planning to write a script; I’m planning to make a film, and so I only see the script as being just a step there.
I love making ‘iCarly’ – it’s so much fun, and I love getting the script every week and not really knowing what insane thing I’m going to be doing. It’s just like an adventure every episode; that’s really fun.
What’s fascinating is that when you write a script, it’s almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you’re not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.
For me, the script is important. If it excites me, I’ll do the film.
