Reading a script is usually as exciting as reading a boilerplate legal document, so when you read one that makes you feel as if you’re seeing the movie, you know it’s something different.
‘King of California’ was just, I thought, a really great, fresh, original kind of script. I loved the tone, the mix of tragedy, comedy, and drama, and that it was a good part.
Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that’s really worth following in this world or the one that’s coming.
I mean when I was working shall we say with Disney, you know they sent me the script for the film Hercules and I had to imagine what all the characters looked like. And to develop those characters, so nothing exists visually when I get the script.
When I read the ‘Country Strong’ script, I thought, ‘Can’t they just hand-double it? Can’t I just do the rest of the movie and not have to do the performing?’ It took me six months to learn to sing and play guitar at the same time.
Your body – or my body – is just kind of stupid. Like, your body doesn’t know whether you’re acting something because it’s happening or whether you’re acting it because it’s in the script.
And then we’ve got Blades of Glory, and we’ve got Brothers Solomon, and I’ve got a script in development with this guy Chuck Martin who used to write on Arrested, and, you know, we have a few things in various stages of development.
When I’m the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I’ll call it my script.
‘War on Everyone,’ I think… the script was hilarious to me, but it’s very dark, dark humor. It’s super dark.
I’m not one of these actors who can make a bad script good. Some actors, a script can be terrible, and they can bring something to it and make it really special. I can’t.
To find a script that works with provocative ideas is hard to find.
I got the script for ‘Real Steel.’ I started reading and saw that it was about robot boxing, and I was immediately turned off. It’s not my thing. But I continued on, and by the time I got to the end of the script, I had chicken skin and tears in my eyes. I thought, ‘Man, we don’t make movies like this anymore.’
I felt the script of ‘Shivajinagara’ was perfect as my character is that of a good guy with shades of grey.
It was the script of ‘VRV’ that brought Gautham Karthik on board. He would not risk his career if he wasn’t confident about the film.
But I have a list of books that I want to read before I die, and whenever I get time to read something that isn’t a script, I’ll read something from that.
A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
I never know if I’m the builder or architect. The role shifts all the time. But what I have come to conclude is that the script is the muse.
They have become part of us in that if we get dressed up as them, we don’t actually have to have a script. You can just become them. You just become nervy.
Turning one’s novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.
My experience is that’s rare – that you have a script that is… what they call ‘film-ready.’
Knowing that Gene and Morgan were playing those roles made it much easier to put the script together-we knew who we were writing it for. It took some mystery away.
I’ve weirdly always got to show my bottom. For some reason my bum always comes out and it’s not always written in the script.
I’m not a big fan of table reads or sitting around a table and reading a script. I’d rather do it on set and do it for real.
I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character’s life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.
Give me a good script, and I’ll be a hundred times better as a director.
What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That’s the way I always work.
I’ll look at the script and I’ll try to find as many books, movies, and pieces of music that I think are going to feed each scene or the character as a whole.
They sent me the script and I thought that there was something very appealing and funny about it. Also, I was familiar with Mike Myers’ work in Saturday Night Live, but I did not know the extent to which he would make this creation.
I find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that’s been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it’s been in development.
There are definitely reasons to do certain things, but I like to stick to good director, good actor, good script.
I am only looking forward to good film script. It doesn’t matter if the role is a supporting or a standalone role.
Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept.
I don’t like the word ‘autobiography.’ I rather like the term ‘autofiction.’ The second you make a script out of the story of your life, it becomes fictional. Of course, the truth is never far. But the story is created out of it.
In a perfect world, my tennis game gets better. I have kids and a beautiful wife and live on some hill somewhere that’s not in Los Angeles. And the script that Tom Hanks just barely turned down gets in my hands.
The possibilities are infinite with new writing; every time you open a new script, there’s no limit to what it might contain.
I want to take roles that challenge me and I want to like the script and obviously feel connected with the director because the director to me is so important.
When I was a kid, I wrote to the BBC, and the producers sent me a huge package through the post with ‘Doctor Who’ scripts. I’d never even seen a script and couldn’t believe that they actually wrote this stuff down. It sort of opened a door.
I truly believe that God brought this, Dorothy Day script to me, because for a long time up until I was in eight grade – I wanted to be a nun.
We start ‘The Butler’ in June and that’s incredibly exciting for me because I get to work with the amazing Forest Whitaker again. It’s a phenomenal script and a great, great role – I play his son. Oprah Winfrey is his wife and my mother. My character is a radical civil rights activist.
When I went in for ‘The Good Doctor,’ I had just been released from ‘Berlin Station.’ And when I got the initial role for the ‘Good Doctor’ pilot, her name was Allegra Abe. That was the script.
We all write, but the script is a blueprint. We can lose whole scenes when we’re shooting.
I had the advantage of reading the book, and when the script was first submitted to me, it was just another gangster story – the east side taking over the west side and all that.
There’s a film I did called ‘Front of the Class’, about a teacher who had Tourette’s. That was a beautiful blend of drama and comedy. There’s some great moments of levity in the script.
Many times, when a director reads a script and wants somebody who says ‘Far out’, then they let me do what I want with it and that’s usually more interesting for an actor.
I have always believed that chemistry can’t be created between two people. You either have it or you don’t. The script can only enhance it.
The script for ‘The Art of Self-Defense,’ to be fair, I knew going into it that it was going to be a hard movie to get made.
I’m a character and relationship guy, and even with the ‘Saw’ films, it’s special-effects people’s jobs to create these scary things. It’s not my job. My job is to bring some sense of humanity to the character, no matter how evil he may be. The script is going to take me there.
Most actors go, ‘I read the script and fell in love with it’; I fall in love with the directors.
A horrible script 99 percent of the time means a horrible movie. But if you start with a good script, odds are you’re going to have a good movie.
I always find that it’s when a script is not detailed, then I have to do more work as an actor.
I have always thought if you are going to make a film, it’s much better to have an original script that will play to film’s strengths.
I think the script is the key. Regardless of how great everybody else is working on a film, if you’re working on a script that you don’t think is great, you’re not gonna be able to make a great film. Whereas if the script is great, then you can.
Since I was 12 or 13, I have been taking movie meetings finding a project right for me because I wanted to try it. Craig gave us the script – it was set in Wales, it is really British humour. I just loved it.
There are so many people who come to me to be an actor, but I select only those people who I feel can fit my script. If they do, I immediately say yes. I don’t do screen tests. I talk to them and see how their mind functions. I read their mind and cast them.
When ‘Pune-52’ was offered to me, I liked the script, but I wasn’t convinced about the kissing and other intimate scenes. I tried talking to the director, but things didn’t work out.
