In this post, you will find great Script Quotes from famous people, such as Eddie Campbell, Eric Stoltz, Margot Robbie, Shailene Woodley, Jean-Louis Trintignant. You can learn and implement many lessons from these quotes.
When I read a script or I see a character, I don’t necessarily see the arc of her, that by the end she is this person, she’s different from she was in the beginning. I guess it’s more a subconscious understanding of that arc.
It’s never a script that makes me decide to accept a film or not.
Certain movies like ‘Wag The Dog,’ we used improv on every scene that we did. Pretty much, we would shoot from the script and then some stuff that we came up with in rehearsal, and then we’d have at least one or two takes where we completely went off the script and just flew by the seat of our pants.
I would consider doing any part as long as the script is good and the film has an interesting director.
Yes, I will probably concentrate on solo roles, but I would not say no to multi-starrers if they come from good directors and with a good script. I would allow myself the freedom to do it.
I don’t write anything off without reading a script, and if it’s a good one, I’ll consider it, whether it’s for $20 or a million dollars.
For years, I was often afraid to speak up when I didn’t fully understand a script. I’d tie myself in knots.
Right before I got ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ I actually quit acting for 18 months and didn’t read a single script, and I wrote a film. I felt like I needed to do something that I had control over, as an artist, and also just do something where I felt like I had some control over my life, as just a human, out in the world.
‘American Playhouse’ is very supportive of writers. That’s really why writers like to write for ‘American Playhouse’ for very little money. They care about making your play, your script, not some network production. We’re treated like playwrights, not like fodder for some machine.
I don’t think I had a script on ‘King Kong.’ But usually you read a script and then you go and audition for it. It’s rare when there’s no script. I sort of like the latter better, because I’m more successful at it.
A script is like a theory of a movie.
You can’t fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen.
A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
I think I do have a good eye. It’s quite liberating, being in a position to read a script and say, ‘No.’ It’s really the only power you have, as an actor.
I think that you can’t make a movie without a script. But you also can’t make movies without actors. You also can’t make movies without technicians. And there has to be just one person in charge of everybody, and to me that one person is the director.
I love OneRepublic, The Script, All Time Low. I love pretty much every genre. I love the Rolling Stones and Elvis.
I consider my job as a screenwriter to pack a script with possibilities and ideas – to create a feast for the filmmaker to pick from.
I like to begin every screenplay with a burst of delusional self-confidence. It tends to fade pretty quickly, but (for me, at least) there doesn’t seem to be any other way to start writing a script.
Even the busboys at the restaurants have a script to give you. Everybody is in the business.
Televison is time bound. Whereas a movie has time. You can’t write a script for television and keep it for one year.
Frankly, as much as I love to improvise, it hasn’t been difficult to stick to the script on ‘Mad Men.’ The writing is so precise, and the story so carefully crafted, that I don’t think there’s room – or need – for ad libbing. I could never come up with dialogue as lovely as these writers do, anyway.
To be honest, I never went to school for acting, and I never learned to break down a script. I took acting classes my whole life, but they never taught me anything about acting. They just taught me about myself.
I am a fan of all genres. My big thing is to serve the purpose of the script and what the director wants. If it’s a comedy, I want to be funny; if it’s action, I want to bring the action. If it’s drama, I want to be the catalyst for that drama. That’s the fun part; it never gets boring being an actor.
With a film, you have to pare down and take stuff out and squish it all down into a 110 page script.
As far as I know, if you take your time, write a good script and make a good film, then give the audience time, they will accept it.
I remember that when I got to NYU, everyone was writing scripts. But I was 18 at the time, and when you write a script, so much of it is about what you pull from life, and this sounds sort of cheesy, but I felt like I didn’t have enough life experience at that point to write a movie.
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 am always open to working with debutant directors, as they bring a new perspective to a script. That motivates me and helps me choose unique scripts.
Give Obama a script he has made his own, and he is the motivational speaker to end all speakers. Tony Robbins cloned with Honest Abe.
I keep every script from every film that I ever made because it’s like a workbook of that time in my life.
My solo novel ‘Icons‘ was optioned by Alcon Entertainment, the folks who made the ‘Beautiful Creatures‘ movie, and that’s gotten as far as a script, but no news yet.
What happens is things come to you – director, script – and if you respond to it, it’s because it’s tapping into some part of what’s inside you, and different roles tap into different parts.
Everyone can do a character the way they want to do it, unless the director tells them not to, which isn’t very common. I like to do my characters, if it’s not specific in the script, as myself.
I won’t work on anyone’s else’s script. I won’t write for anyone else. I write my own stuff and make that when the time is right.
‘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.
You just have to take these opportunities when they come along. They’re not that frequent; you’ll get a really good script, oh, maybe once a year if you’re lucky.
The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try do do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what’s more interesting is always what’s not being said.
I would love to occasionally do English-speaking films, but the script is as important for me as the director.
If I’m having a bad day in rehearsal, I’ll sleep with my script.
It could be a great script but the director is not the right person for me to work for at this time. So there are a lot of elements that come into play and a lot of variables, but more than anything it’s got to be a great script and a great character.
The key is, if you’re not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.
What you see in my script may not be what’s in the film. Sometimes it’s a very scary thing, when I have to shoot in the morning and the scene’s not good enough, and it’s only me there, and there’s no signal to even call the others and say, think of a better line.
Sometimes a script comes along that really makes you sit up and pay attention… ‘Life at These Speeds’ has an emotional intensity that really kicked me in the guts.
I started writing this feature comedy in New York – a Chris Farley vehicle. The script was decent. When I got to LA, I met some new friends in film school and had them read my script and give me notes.
I don’t see how it’s a risky thing to take a great part with a great director and a great script. That, to me, is not really a dangerous, risky proposition. It’s actually a really good choice.
Whereas with Sirk, everything is always filmed. No matter what the script, he’s always a real director.
The short film project I just finished for W Hotels and Intel, I didn’t have my script finished until a few days before we began filming. We edited it very quickly and now it’s up online. It was great to conceive an idea and have it premiere just a few weeks later, compared to a feature, which takes a year or more.
‘Safe’ was a script that I read and flipped out for.
I have always tried to work according to what affects me, to a script that I like because it touches me in some way, without deliberately pursuing a commercial career or a particular image.
Generally, if a good script comes in I read it, and if it appeals to me, it appeals to me. And it doesn’t have to be anything – it doesn’t have to be the main character, it doesn’t have to be a huge part. It could be a nice cameo – anything that I think is good and surrounded by good, enthusiastic people.
Director Kabir Khan had read the script of ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ and is responsible for roping in Salman Khan for this film – a movie that will also mark as Salman’s debut production.
I like challenging parts, something I haven‘t done yet, something that scares me. There’s just a feeling I get when I read a script that I love, I feel an attachment to it, a yearning to play that character.
When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he’s going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there’s one guy: the director. It’s different in television.
Give me a good script, and I’ll be a hundred times better as a director.
I’ve seen a lot of friends who have a lot of great projects, whether it’s a script or a play or whatever, and it is a great project and they have great people involved, and they can’t make it.
It’s very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don’t know.
I am open to working with new directors as long as the script excites me.
I can’t even read a script. I’ve tried and it’s painful to watch.
All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what’s on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that’s there in the script.
When I meet a good actor, I would like to be a director. When I meet a good director, I would like to be an actor. When there is a good script, I would like to be both a director and an actor. The switch is very natural, not intentional.
There are a lot of visual marks that have to be hit, and lines that need to be said in a right way – so there wasn’t really any improvisation on the set when it came to the bulk of the script.
I would love to direct a western. I love taking photographs and I’m always fascinated with angles. Also, my father was a film editor, and I have a talent for thinking of things that aren’t always in a script.
What appealed to me about ‘The Loved Ones‘ script was that it had this really theatrical element to it. I thought that the scope of this character is so broad, and there is so much fun to be had playing a crazy teenage loner. It was a great way to explore the delusions a mind can create.
People always say a script will be ‘brought to life in a magical way,’ but for me that has been proven wrong time and time again.
I always find that it’s when a script is not detailed, then I have to do more work as an actor.
I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.
I only sound intelligent when there’s a good script writer around.
Well, you know, I never want to feel like I have a set plan of what I’m supposed to do. I kind of like to go script by script, and if I like the character and like the story that’s why I want to do a movie.
In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it.
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.
No one ever gets to write their ending, write their final script.
They needed someone to write a script of The Great Gatsby very quickly for the movie they were making. I took this job so I’d be sure to have some dough to support my family.
The main problem was a pacing problem. I had wanted the project to be about 20-30 issues, and I should have written it out as a full script beforehand.
I’m not used to a script.
A good script makes our job a lot easier.
I was a little bit wary of playing Nicholas. In the script, which I think is true of the novel and the film, he’s the only character not singing and dancing in a musical style. Playing someone who is the personification of good is a little difficult.
A director should cast a person who fits into their script.
I prefer doing strong roles irrespective of duration, and it is almost impossible for me to take up a role that has nothing much to contribute to the script.
I’m good with a script.
‘Vinyl‘ is a good look at the music industry. The script was honest.
There’s a bit of a problem. The script that I like, the network doesn’t like. The script that they like, I don’t like.
If it’s a modern-day story dealing with certain ethnic groups, I think I could open up certain scenes for improvisation, while staying within the structure of the script.
When I read the script sometimes, it’s like ‘Christ! Enough!’ I can’t sleep at night sometimes. There’s the occasional script that just hammers you, that you can’t shower off.
I’m a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don’t want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make… of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.
Coming from an action background, I always approach the action sequences in any script as kind of placeholders.
I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone – you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.
I always try to stick to the script because I want to respect the writers, and I want to respect the director. But if the director and my fellow actors are okay with me playing with it a little bit, then I definitely want to play with it.
My experience is that’s rare – that you have a script that is… what they call ‘film-ready.’
I always choose my projects for the script or what the director want to tell with that story. And if I like the story.
‘Sparkle‘ fell into my lap. I had heard a little bit about it, that it was being redone in early 2011. I was just kind of like, ‘Oh, that would be really cool,’ and not really thinking too much about it, and then it came through my agency. I read it, I fell in love with the script and I went in to audition.
Every time I think I’m going to take it slow, a good script comes along.
It was pretty much the way that it was when I first read it, although one exception would be that some ideas that I had were also incorporated into the script.
I love TV, don’t get me wrong. But with film, you’re just banging out this one product and you’re not waiting on another script. You have your script. It’s great, in that way.
I don’t worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.
For me, it’s always the script. The script which gives me the chance to do something new; that has been my prime objective ever since I started acting. There’s nothing else that excites me more than that.
If you’re locked to the words on the script, as good as those scripted words are, if you didn’t have the time to rehearse them correctly or if the perceived dynamic between the actors is different from what the writer imagined, and you’re not allowed to stray from that, you’re going to have a stilted scene.
What I appreciated was the fact that the script delved into how Australians were – and still are – condescended to by the English.
To try to create a character without a whole lot of information can be taxing. At the same time, it’s fun to just stay on your toes and let the next bit of dialogue come in, and turn the page as you read the next script and see what they have in store for you next.
I remember when my first child was born, and I had a script that was due, and I asked the guy I was writing it for, a guy who I’m now friends with but at the time was not friend with, ‘Can I have some extra time? I had a kid born.’ He’s like, ‘No, we need it now.’
They’re still working on the script – they’ve got to get that nailed down and they want the first movie to come out obviously, not get too ahead of themselves. But yeah, it’s looking good. I love the second book a lot as well, so kind of diving into that is awesome.
Most actors really love it, that’s what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they’ll read a script and think, that’s an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.
I remember the first reading of the script we had and everybody was sitting around the table. I was very impressed with the level of acting that was in the room, particularly with Jennifer who has so much responsibility.
At the end of the day, my bread and butter comes from films, so I have to work in films that may not have a great script, but give me a fat pay cheque.
I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you’ve never made a film, you’re not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
I am always excited when the script or the character has something different to offer.
There is no norm that a woman must write a certain kind of script.
It was, when I read it, I thought, such a beautiful script. I loved the story. I thought it was well handled. I thought it was even more moving because it was a true story and that made it even more poignant.
I feel as though my career really hit its high point when I was cast as a supporting actress in ‘American Wedding‘. I thought the script had a lot of depth and intelligence, and it really just jumped off the page.
Dave Chappelle asked me to come do his show. I read the script, and I said, ‘Has he lost his mind?’
I like challenges. That’s why if I read a script, and I feel, ‘Oh, I can’t do this,’ I’ll take that role, because if I feel like, ‘Oh, I can do this,’ I don’t want to take that because I can’t learn from that film.
Different directors have different things, so when I left Mike Leigh, as it were, and I went into other projects after ‘All or Nothing,’ it took some getting used to – what do you mean there’s a script?!?’ That kind of thing.
I learn the whole script before I show up.
I think it helps, as an actor, to never know when you’re going to get that next script and you’re done.
I’m a very visual person when it comes to writing music. I like to see something besides just a script, even if it’s just a storyboard or pictures from the set.
I read so slow. If I have a script, I’m going to read it five times slower than any other actor, but I’ll be able to tell you everything in it. It kills me that there are standardized tests geared towards just one kind of child.
I honestly have no strategy whatsoever. I’m waiting for that script to pop through the letterbox and completely surprise me.
I read the ‘Kapoor & Sons’ script in a half hour, forty five minutes. Not because I skimming through it… I read it like a book. By the end, I was blown away. I picked up the phone and said, ‘This script is gold.’
I worked in script development, many years ago, and read a lot of scripts. Between that and the scripts I’ve read as an actor, and I’m a writer as well, I think I have a pretty good sense about whether the bones of a story are there and whether the structure is intact.
And I’m auditioning right now for a movie, and then I have a script that I’m reading right now for a horror film, and I’m meeting for a couple of television shows that I just had yesterday, and pretty much was offered one of them.
At the same time, reading an action script… It makes me wonder. Was The Matrix a good script? I don’t know.
The possibilities are infinite with new writing; every time you open a new script, there’s no limit to what it might contain.
When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, ‘It’s in the script.’ If he says, ‘But what’s my motivation?, ‘ I say, ‘Your salary.’
I read a script and I know immediately whether that role is for me or not.
If I feel like it’s a well-written script and if it speaks to me, it’s something I want to do. I usually rely on my instincts when it comes to a script.
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.
We have the script, we have the actors, and we’re trying to figure out what this is, and you don’t know what it is. You have to be open to what it’s going to become rather than have this thing that you’re trying to get to, which is boring.
If you think you don’t want to play another psychopath, but the script is amazing, and the director is fantastic, and the story is incredible, then you may end up playing your third psychopath in a row.
I look forward to every script that comes down the pike.
It would be great to read a script, which is an action script uniquely written so that it doesn’t cost an arm or a leg because we are now accustomed to seeing action in the superhero form.
When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don’t have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies.
You can over-think things. If the script’s good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it and do it honestly. I also don’t learn things for auditions, because I feel like it’s just a test of memorising rather than being real.
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.
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.
I’ve done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I’m a great believer that you have to be true to the script.
Of course you want to be good and you want to do the best you can, but I am inspired by great writing. If there’s something about the script, that’s what I go for, although I know that that doesn’t always translate because sometimes it’s about the vision of the director.
I prepared the script of ‘Pataas’, when working for ‘Kandireega’. When I approached Kalyan Ram with the script, he liked it and said that he will produce the film with a big hero.
For me, it depends only on the script, the part I’m doing, and the people around me. It could be in Greenland or the Sahara. I don’t care.
There are definitely reasons to do certain things, but I like to stick to good director, good actor, good script.
A script is only as good as the director who’s making it.
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.
Possibly because I did start off as a journalist, my starting point has always been that you’ve got to keep an audience with you. Whatever you’re doing, you always want a script to be a page-turner. It’s very important never, ever, to feel above that.
I would consider a half hour sitcom if the script was good.
It’s madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot.
I got it into my head that I was going to be starring in movies that I wrote, so that’s what I did. I stopped acting in all things, and I wrote my first script, which was optioned a week after I finished it.
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.
When you have a good script you’re almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.
You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.
I like both music and acting, and they both have a lot in common – timing, immediacy, stuff like that. But acting is more regimented. You wait around for hours, you don’t get to write the script, you get hired. Music represents me better. I’m not acting; I’m just expressing myself.
People don’t think of genres anymore. The script is all that matters. And as long as it appeals to my sensibilities as an actor-producer, I’m on.
Your instincts for what’s dramatic are the same whether you’re working on a drawing or on a script.
It’s all about the script. Reality is key to me and less cutesy.
Whatever happens in my life from now on, I know the day I finally die – the final act of my script – people will always make references to the work I’ve done with Almodovar.
When I first read the script for ‘A Little Chaos,’ I just loved reading it, as it is a really lovely, accessible, contemporary period film.
I’d love to work on a script in collaboration.
Give me a good script, and I’ll be a hundred times better as a director.
The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles – and they often die very quickly in the script.
You don’t improvise with a Cameron Crowe script.
I always feel that if you put me in a room with a director and a writer and let me talk about the script, I can give a good account of myself.
I know that I wouldn’t mind going back to work if I could find the right script and the right crew to work with.
You have to be careful so you don’t make your character dull and predictable. Sometimes you have to bend the script a little… The bad guys are mostly the same on the paper… A bad guy wouldn’t think of himself as bad.
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.
I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we’re really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting.
I guess people feel that if you’re working with good directors and are known in the Hindi film industry, then you won’t work in South films. However, I believe that films have no boundaries of language, religion, or cast. If it’s a good script and a good director, I can do a film in Spanish as well.
If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you’re turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book.
I don’t worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.
Even before my audition, there were several pages missing from my script because those bits were so unbelievably secret not even I was allowed to see them.
I just arrive, they hand me a script and say, do it.
I think it’s incumbent on actresses to bring something else to the part which isn’t in the script.
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.
I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It’s about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me.
I’ve been working on this feature script for Master Class, a play by Terrence McNally that won a lot of Tonys.
When I start thinking about a role, I read the script a few times and then let it sink in – and then take some time to develop how that character is going to play out and what he’s going to do.
I think it’s always challenging to look at a script and make it your own while maintaining the sense of what the style of the show is.
A script is not a piece of literature it’s a process.
I dropped the script in the fireplace, called my agent and said, they can jail me, sue me, but I’m never acting again, unless I can do something worthwhile.
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.
I’m thinking about directing, but I know it’s a lot of work and I appreciate what directors do and I would like to be good at it. The opportunity has presented itself four to five times, and I usually said no because of the script.
It’s always about trying to make everything go with the music, like a script. It’s not like, ‘Let’s have a confetti gun!’ If I ever have one of those, it will be because it’s absolutely the right thing at the moment in the song. I can’t just go get a confetti gun.
For me, I never take a job thinking it’s going to grab ratings or that it’s even going to be a success. I don’t. I just take the job because I love the character. Or I love the script. Maybe I love the director. But whatever I do, I never think about how it will do. That is not in my hands.
I really think that reading a whole script is kind of prying and neurotic, don’t you?
In general, when moviemakers talk to scientists, they usually see them as a resource to solve particular technical problems or script problems for them. So, something like: what sort of weaponry would aliens be able to wield?
There’s a certain arrogance to an actor who will look at a script and feel like, because the words are simple, maybe they can paraphrase it and make it better.
The first script I got was Narc and I really responded to it; it reminded me of a ’70s type movie, I really liked the characters, I didn’t anticipate the ending.
I don’t work very much, and I just sit here waiting for a script that I can’t refuse – and I’m not talking about money.
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.
What I hope in my ideal world is that with each project, I’ll either get to work with a really great script that would force me to grow, or work with a really great actor who will make me better.
My plan was to go to New York and do some theatre, and then I got the script for ‘Psych.’ I was like, ‘Ahh – just as I thought I was out, you pulled me back in!’ I had a great meeting with the show creator and we laid out the parameters to make the show work: what I would do, what he would let me do.
You know when you’ve found a part that you want to play. You know it because the part takes you over. It sits in the script waiting for you to play him.
In television you don’t have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it’s even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.
When you make feature films, you have a script, which is a bible. The final result should be as it was written down on paper. And in documentary, you can write whatever you want, but life brings you situations where you have to be fast thinking, fast moving.
I’m always looking for a low-budget script with an interesting character to play.
I still take work if I think it’s good. If I like the script, I’ll do it. If I don’t, I won’t.
I read the script. If I like it, I would do anything I am asked to.
The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.
I’m very interested in any script that makes me laugh.
I do finish reading a script and say, Why are they making it and what are they talking about? I like to try and be responsible in my choices in that way.
I’m not famous for my back story investigations; I’m lucky that I work with good writers and it’s usually in the script.
Improv plays such a huge role in finding great lines – you’ll be surprised at what comes out of your mind inadvertently. A lot of times it’s better than a script you’ve worked out ahead of time.
I’ve been fired from a situational comedy with a script they wrote specifically for me because of my voice.
I’m never certain of a performance – my own or the other actors’ – or the script or anything… But to me it seems there’s only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.
The big lesson of Reagan is: To think that he was some sort of simple figurehead and didn’t do the thinking and simply read a script in front of him woefully underestimates him. Ronald Reagan was an extremely intelligent person with a real V8 engine under his hood.
Sometimes when it comes to the iconic kind of moments, when I read the script for the first time, you get little goose bumps or something because it really is kind of exciting.
But I loved the script to 7th Heaven and couldn’t say no. It made me laugh and cry, and I was hooked. I’d love to know who turned it down, because I’m sure at least one other actor did. But I’m glad he did, whoever it was.
I read the script for Wonder Boys, and I said that was almost perfect, it was so classy, cool and funny. It’s a really specific thing. We stuck to it, it turned out good and a lot of people liked it.
As a rule it usually takes three or four readings for me to be interested in a script, and if I’m interested I’ll read it three or four times before I make a strong decision.
Sometimes you see things in a script, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the director sees the same things. And if you think you’re going to be making a different film, then that’s not gonna work.
For me, the script is important. If it excites me, I’ll do the film.
When I first read the script a few years ago I thought it was one of the best written scripts I had ever read.
I always overwrite – really awful, long bits of script – and then I trim it down to the bare bones and then add a little bit to colour it in. At the end of all of my stories, I test for wordless comprehension. So I remove the text and see if it works by itself. And if it does, I feel that that’s a successful story.
Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes – that’s what it is, as an actor.
When I do a novel, I don’t really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.
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.
It was cinematographer George C. Williams who first told me about ‘Sakhavu.’ He said that the script was good and asked me to listen to it. Later, Sidhartha Siva called me and narrated the script over the phone.
I was a novelist first. But in the mid-’80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, ‘You know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.’
I was in an acting class taught by Eric Morris, and Jack Nicholson was in the class. He wrote the script for ‘Head’, so all of us in the class got little tiny parts in the movie.
It’s a hard thing to do, to be given a script, and know that you’ve got to turn up on the first day of the shoot – generally without having had any rehearsal – and present a character. It’s really baffling; it’s incredibly hard to know how to begin, to approach it, other than just thinking about it.
Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It’s not just about reading your lines and saying what’s in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always respond.
Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles – local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.
It’s possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can’t make a good movie from a bad script.
I’ve never had a written script.
When a script moves me, I find that I immediately understand a character. Of course not completely, but I do understand.
Changes are required as far as scripts are concerned. People need to open up and experiment in story lines. But we don’t have good script writers, producers or directors. The Punjabi industry lacks cinema knowledge and professionalism. It is the saddest part.
If I put the script down more than once, there’s a good chance that I probably don’t want to play the part.
I think that my script, if it gets used, would be great. But if it doesn’t, I think it inspired them.
I don’t really look for a script and go, ‘I need to do a thriller, so I’m going to do this.’ I just read scripts and look for the best possible story.
I always get quite close to my script because I work quite hard on them.
The problems I have with a flawed script are always revealed in the editing room.
It’s funny because I was offered film parts the first week after ‘The Office’ went out. I was sent a script, and I said, ‘Who’s the lead?’ They said, ‘We want you to be.’ And I said: ‘Well, who’s going to go and see that? You want John Cusack.’
I usually choose movies that I would want to see. I appreciate drama and if the right script came across my desk, drama you will see.
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.
If I read the right script, if that script needs $5 million, if that script needs $50 million, I don’t care. If I read a project that’s beautiful, that I really want to make, whatever it needs, it needs.
Well, obviously, as soon as I’d finished the script I read a lot of books on Winston Churchill, and started to gain weight and really prepare emotionally, mentally and physically for the role.
It’s fun to improvise, but I still think it’s better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.
After I script the movie, I have to storyboard it out, I have to budget it, and I have to understand if I can afford all those visual effects or not.
It all starts with the script: it’s not worth taking myself away from my family if I don’t have something I’m really passionate about.
Once you start to play together, vibing off each other in the scene, it’s not just the notes – it’s the music. The script might be the notes playing, but we’re making it music.
I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.
The final product in a play is not just the written word. It’s the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it’s only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse.
In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason – the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you’d be off mike and off camera.
I tend to get comfortable with the dialogue and find out who the person is in the script and try to hit that. People are sort of independent of their occupations and their pastimes. You don’t play a politician or a fireman or a cowboy – you just play a person.
I look for the character to be something interesting, the script to have a good story and be original, and a director that I admire.
You stick to the script, the script is Bible.
When good things come in, my agent calls or sends me the script. But I allow them to sort through the offers so that I am not just sitting and reading everything because honestly, sometimes the scripts that appeal to me are projects that are not good projects, but I just really like the script or the characters.
I would love to do another hockey movie. There are a lot of people in Hollywood looking for the right hockey script.
I get asked to give stuff to my dad. I’m, like, ‘I’m not gonna pass your script to him!’ You know? My dad’s my dad. I’m not his agent.
These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.
Writing a great script – not just a good one, but a great one – is almost an impossible task.
The script is a blueprint for the film – there are very few bad scripts that make good movies. If you really like the character and understand the utility it serves within the movie, that’s a part of my process.
When I was in New York, a lot of my friends were studying filmmaking and would bring their scripts to me, as I was a good script doctor. I would read their scripts and make corrections to them for $20 per script and was fascinated by films.
I choose movies, I never choose roles. I look at the script. I look at the director. I look at the other actors – and then the role.
Actually when I gave out the script, I gave it with a CD of all the music I wanted to put in the movie, and again, we never thought we’d get all that music.
The fun stuff comes when someone is not so strict on sticking to the script. You’re allowed the spontaneity, and great moments can happen.
My friends, we all improvise together usually. So we write what I think is a good script but always leave a lot of room to find stuff on the day; and we always do find something. That’s the advantage to having actors who are, in their own right, writers.
I like my characters to be ones I think about long after I’ve finished reading the script.
Whenever I read a script, I start recasting the role that I might play. I’m like, ‘God, this should be played by Domhnall Gleeson, not me.’
We all had our reservations about possibly overdoing it but, you know, the script was great. Basically it stuck to the formula that worked for the first two movies, and for that reason I think this works as well.
Personally when I listen to a script, I think from the audience’s point of view. I would ask myself whether they would like to see me in this role?
Yes, I am aware that I have become a caricature. I’ve thought about this. Conceptually, what I’d like to do is the equivalent of writing myself out of the script.
If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don’t know.
To make the script, you need ideas, and for me a lot of times, a final script is made up of many fragments of ideas that came at different times.
It’s really cool when the thing you are working on as a small team gets embraced by millions, but in the end, it’s about your character and the script and your director and the rest of the cast and crew.
I fly around with chicks on each arm and have no script. I just talk about what I feel like. But that’s why my act works: I’m like this normal guy.
Consciously picking the right script after a long period of wait helped me grab a perfect film in the rom-com genre.
I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions?
I remember going to Bob Preston’s dressing room because I was losing a laugh – as you do in a long run. He said, ‘Give me the script. That’s where you’re going off the road.’ That’s comedy. It’s never the line itself; it’s in the foundation.
Together with script writers Sid Green and Dick Hills, we worked on the comedy ideas for this series.
The green-light meeting, when I first started at Paramount, would consist of maybe three or four of us in a room. Perhaps two or three of us would have read the script under discussion.
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.
My Brilliant Career was beautifully directed, but I had a bit of trouble with myself in it. It was a silly script, based on a book this 16-year-old girl wrote.
I never really do much research before signing a film. It is just the script and character that I concentrate on.
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 prefer working, period. I think that I like doing film more just because when you get a script, you have the story from start to finish, so you can really find the character’s arc, and when you walk away from it, you know you’re sort of powerless to what happens.
Whether you believe it or not, you have to understand the politics. In every script, there is a political bend that the writer has included. Whether you like it or not, is on you. But it’s very important to know that politics.
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 really believe that when you’re playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I’m pulling from things from my own life, then I think I’m being disingenuous to the character and the story.
For me, the work begins with a rough cut of the film. I can’t do much with the script. I’ve tried to write music to a script prior to seeing the film, but I’ve found it turns out to be a waste of time.
I definitely script things out. I definitely write things down and try to write jokes. Often, they’re terrible. I often write terrible, terrible jokes.
In the original script, my character was a basketball player rather than a boxer. I didn’t think I could pull that off. I’m a little short to be a basketball player!
The thing is when you play a character it’s the persona you bring across from a book to film, or book to script to film. If I play Frank Sinatra, there’s gonna be things I do in a movie that Frank might not have done, but it’s the personality that comes across.
If it were all in the script, why make the film?
Things have got to add up to 100 points. The script is part of it, the character is part of it, the people I’m working with is the third part of it – and any combination of the three has got to add up to 100 points.
If you get a script and it’s really well written, that’s always exciting.
You’d go in, read the script once for timing and then you would sit around and play games. The sound effects people would come in and we would do a dress rehearsal so they could get the effects and the music cues in place. Then you would wait until you went on the air.
Shiddat’ is a beautiful story of love and the strong bonds between people. It is pure and intense and also very relatable. I am usually not a love story kind of person, but when I heard the script, it moved me a lot.
If the script grabs me and appeals to me, I’m really very keen to work on it.
I can’t remember what my first script was.
When I was 21, I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for ‘The Simpsons‘ who’d briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life.
‘Vinyl‘ is a good look at the music industry. The script was honest.
I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You’d like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there’s a problem with the script.
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.
I’m a big ‘Breaking Bad‘ fan – if I’m not in the script, I like to experience the show with the rest of the world. I’m ready to be shocked.
They are just really stupid people in Hollywood. You write them a script, and they say they love it, they absolutely love it. Then they say, ‘But doesn’t it need a small dog, and an Eskimo, and shouldn’t it be set in New Guinea?’ And you say, ‘But it is a sophisticated romantic comedy set in Paris.’
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.
But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.
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 just think Australia tends to make very good movies, so if someone hands me an Australian or an American film script I would guess the Australian film would be more intriguing.
I try to look at the whole thing and say ‘yes’ to the projects that I cannot stop thinking about. If I read a script and the subject stays with me – then that’s when I want to go to work.
What really makes it fun for an actor is when the script is good.
I always think it’s interesting to switch genres, because if I read a script and I know exactly how to manifest a story, I don’t really want to do it anymore, because I’ve already done it in my head.
Sometimes you do a film because the script is amazing, sometimes you do it because you get to work with amazing people, and sometimes you do a film because they pay you money.
I’m doing another Churchill. I did a Churchill for HBO and that was up to 1939 and there’s talk of the war years. They were going to do it this fall, but the script wasn’t going to be ready.
It doesn’t help anybody to put out a bad script.
Being asked to memorise a script in one day when you have dyslexia is the same as having a broken foot and being asked to dance. You have to make exceptions for it.
I read the script, and I knew it was a good part. It was written for a white actor. That’s what I’m up against – I have to try to make roles happen for me that aren’t written black.
Because I used to go and watch him rehearsing for pantomime, and I have adopted some of those priciples, like try to be on time, learn your script, how he approach it, etc.
To try and stand outside the marriage, I’d say we have complementary capabilities. I do the hustling and the business. I do more script reading. I handle contracts.
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.
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.
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 was asked to do a reading of ‘G.B.F.’ and I loved the script. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I’d read, but it took a year to get a green light for production.
To this day, I get rewrite offers where they say: ‘We feel this script needs work with character, dialogue, plot and tone,’ and when you ask what’s left, they say: ‘Well, the typing is very good.’
When you first read a script is the purest moment. That’s when you can understand how an audience will ultimately receive it. The first reading of the script is so important because you’re experiencing it all for the first time, and it’s then that you really know if it’s going to work or not.
Well, there’s no question that a good script is an absolutely essential, maybe the essential thing for a movie.
The bottom line is, it’s a great script and that’s very inspiring and makes you want to overcome whatever technical difficulties you come up against.
You make a decision whether you just work on the script and believe in every moment and pick out every moment, or if you sit down and memorize lines. Once you really dig into a script, learning lines becomes almost second nature.
Most actors go, ‘I read the script and fell in love with it’; I fall in love with the directors.
If you have a script that’s not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who’s not good, never are you going to have a good movie.
Fozzie Bear has so many bear puns in this script – like, ‘Trac is grizzly!’ ‘This is unbearable!’ It’s the greatest.
I sketched out a rough story for them and the director said, well it’s a good story but we have the go-ahead from Universal to make this script and did I want to do it. I said no, and they left.
When I read the script, I was like, Hello, woman in a box. I had to explore that to the end.
I mean, the first ‘Back to the Future‘ is kind of a perfect script, I think, in terms of handling time travel the best. It depends on your definition. To me, that means it effectively uses it in the story.
If you read the script, and the character’s got something in it that you relate to, then I am keen. But I really think, a lot of the time, my successful auditions are those where I really care about the characters.
I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.
Every movie you attack has its challenges, and I was excited about the challenges presented by ‘Deadpool.’ I was a huge fan of the original, and I think, as a director, you have to put the script first.
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.
Well, usually, when you’re doing a sitcom, you get a script and every word or for the most part, is written. So, you know, if it’s a 30-minute sitcom, then it’s a 35-page script or something like that.
I’m not saying I’m a writer, but I’ve been in movies for a long time, and I think I could write a script for a movie.
Rock is all about writing your own script; it’s all about pioneering.
I never practice before, I never work hours on a script. I just choose my characters and trust them, and after that, it’s about the director taking your hand.
It’s a shame, but every time I get something scientific in the script, I read up to find out what I’m talking about – but then I’m on to the next script and it’s forgotten.
Howard Minsky had gotten the script to her agent prior to my involvement.
‘Liberace’s a great film. It’s a great piece of material. I have a great script and it’s a great score.
I’m not accustomed to doing films without seeing the script.
Ensure that your script is watertight. If it’s not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen.
You can have a great script, and it can be a great show, but for whatever reason, it just doesn’t take the public’s interest.
I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.
There was one film that I really wanted. This was a long time ago; it was a film called ‘Fracture.’ Ryan Gosling ended up doing it with Anthony Hopkins. It wasn’t a giant box-office success, but I really enjoyed the script, and I enjoyed the character. I got pretty close and was kind of disappointed it didn’t go my way.
I didn’t want to do ‘Casino Royale’ when they told me to audition. I said no. Then they sent me the script, and I thought it was actually very interesting – and I had no other work at the time.
TV feels quite constipated, and the thing I find particularly difficult is the branding of the channels where it’s not ‘Is it a good script?’ but ‘Is it a BBC2 script?’
When James Cameron brought me the script, which I developed with both Cameron and Jay Cocks, I wanted to make it a thriller, an action film, but with a conscience, and I found that it had elements of social realism.
Once you’ve agreed the script, you must be willing to go as far as it needs to go on set.
I’d love to see a good script of one of my books, in these years of animations and comic book sequels, and had so many written over the years, but none quite clicked.
