Scripts Quotes

My thing is that most scripts arent bad scripts, theyre just not finished yet. ~ Michael Arndt

Deleuze's findings are confirmed by those of an experienced woman psychiatrist who for many years has made a study of automatic writing. In conversation this lady has informed me that, sooner or later, most automatists produce scripts in which certain metaphysical ideas are set forth. The theme of these scripts is always the same: namely, the the ground of the individual soul is identical with the divine Ground of all being. Returning to their normal state, the automatists read what they have written and often find it in complete disharmony with what they have always believed. ~ Aldous Huxley

You have a lot more leeway to be contradictory playing a character than most of the scripts have in them. That's how all actors are. We have so many different sides of ourselves and we're so different, in meeting with different people. The audiences relate more to that and find that more believable. ~ Joel Kinnaman

Rock is all about writing your own script; it's all about pioneering. ~ Courtney Love

You're looking for the best way of shooting it, but sometimes the best way of shooting it is changing the script. ~ Jose Padilha

Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is. ~ Douglas Adams

I actually had a chance to be in Delta Farce, but I couldn't do it because I read the script. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

I had read enough mediocre scripts and was determined not to inflict another one on the world. ~ Michael Arndt

I've always sensed what a script should sound like - even before the movie's been made ~ David Puttnam

I've never read a script that I've loved equally and differently to the book. ~ Emma Roberts

My key interest in choosing scripts is character-driven stories, because there are so many stories that sacrifice character for plot. ~ Lasse Hallstrom

A lot of the websites built through the 1990s used Perl. The first webmaster of Sun Microsystems coined a wonderful phrase. He said Perl is the duck tape of the Internet - it's this language that people would write all these scripts that make things just work. ~ Tim O'Reilly

Eventually Frances was credited with writing 325 scripts covering every conceivable genre. She also directed and produced half a dozen films, was the first Allied woman to cross the Rhine in World War I, and served as the vice president and only woman on the first board of directors of the Screen Writers Guild. She painted, sculpted, spoke several languages fluently, and played "concert caliber" piano. Yet she claimed writing was "the refuge of the shy" and she shunned publicity; she was uncomfortable as a heroine, but she refused to be a victim. ~ Cari Beauchamp

Oftentimes, you read these pilot scripts that come through for American work, and they don't sing to you. I've got to be honest, not many of them ignite the flame or give you that burning feeling of, 'Oh, God, I really want to be a part of this.' ~ Antony Starr

So many of the great detectives that we see on television now owe their origins to Sherlock Holmes. What was very exciting about Rob's pitch and script was that he is a real Holmes-ian expert. He knew all of the mythology. He was very well-versed in the genesis of Holmes and the stories. And the twist with Watson is something we jumped at immediately. It's a very forward-thinking way of doing the show. ~ Nina Tassler

Once you crack the script, everything else follows. ~ Ridley Scott

I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers. ~ Steve Martin

There is a moment, in all my studying of movies and scripts, that I'd realized something elemental about human beings and why I'd been attracted to that imaginary world. Each piece of work was attempting to describe the human condition, in all its good, bad and ugly glory. At first, it'd been an extension of my own life, strangely mirrored in this world of 'fiction'. Each story wanted, no - needed - to reveal a human fragility, a human bondage which tied people to the things they did and to be the person they held in their heads. Those stories were something true and sometimes horrific but people were people and the parts didn't just tell the whole story. ~ C.J. Roberts

I've sold scripts in the past, and also a TV pilot that didn't get made, to Fox. But yeah, I've been writing for a while. ~ Michael Jai White

I don't get that many scripts. Back in Australia, I've pretty much done my own shows and really no work outside of that. It's only now that I'm starting to read some Hollywood film scripts, and I've read some really great ones. ~ Jason Gann

I don't consciously seek out Australian projects. I put them on the same table as all the other scripts and I wouldn't ever do a film just because it's been shot at home. ~ Eric Bana

I do not make films which are prescriptive, and I do not make films that are conclusive. You do not walk out of my films with a clear feeling about what is right and wrong. They're ambivalent. You walk away with work to do. My films are a sort of investigation. They ask questions ... Sometimes I hear that some [Hollywood] studio is interested in me. Then they discover that this is the guy who works with no script, that there is no casting discussion, no interference, that I have the final cut, and that does it. ~ Mike Leigh

There've been moments where I just was tired of being in L.A. It was very difficult. I mean, you're constantly rejected. And that's OK, it's just really frustrating for me, because I try to read scripts and projects that have really great, deeper, meaningful qualities to them. ~ Missy Peregrym

When I'm not acting, I'm writing, building an inventory of scripts. Even if they sit on the shelf, I just keep stacking them up. ~ Dan Aykroyd

Write your script. When you see things you don't want, don't think about them, write about them, talk about them, push against them, or join groups that focus on the don't wants ... remove your attention from don't wants.. and place them on do wants. ~ Rhonda Byrne

Page one of the script, I launch into, "How would I feel if I were in this position?" That's an actor's job. ~ Dermot Mulroney

I haven't heard anything about a reunion show for Sisters. But if the script was good I would do it. ~ Sela Ward

I've always been a character actor, although I'm not quite sure what that means. All my scripts are absolutely covered in notes, so any time I say anything - even 'pass the salt' - I have six subtexts, comments on what I really mean when I'm saying that. Maybe that's what gives the impression that I'm saying one thing and thinking something else. ~ Christopher Walken

We follow our scripts like actors in a very large, very long production. And even with no audience, none of us gives a hint that it isn't real. ~ Ann Brashares

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting. I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again. ~ Genevieve Bujold

Yeah, the main goal when I'm writing [movie scripts] is to entertain myself. It's supposed to be funny, but then a funny idea can be turned into something else. ~ Quentin Dupieux

Oh, I had an idea for a pilot of my own at the time, and then Carl sent me about eight scripts and simply I threw my idea out the window because the writing was just so good. ~ Dick Van Dyke

Life actors never rehearse and need no script. A life actor uses only what is available, nothing more, nothing less. ~ Abbie Hoffman

I've been amazed watching people who are not ready with their scripts when they're getting a lot of attention. ~ Allison Anders

The play is really a kind of nightmare. It ought to flow rapidly and effortlessly from one moment to another. In London, we had difficulty with the set, which required too much effort to move around. Having gotten the benefit of seeing it done once, I wanted to work on the script, to make it sharper and more pointed. ~ Arthur Miller

You have to write a lot of scripts to get any scripts that are worth making. ~ Judd Apatow

When you make the film, there's a big difference between when you're in your own home at the typewriter, and when you're standing on a mountain, or on a street corner, and buses are coming by-it's a different reality. You make a million changes that were never in the script, but that reality dictates. ~ Woody Allen

For the most part I pick movies based on the merit of the script, and the merit of the script only. ~ Amber Heard

I looked at a lot of the comics and I tried to just get an idea from that. Not necessarily specifics of what my look would be or what the plan would be because I knew the script was evolving. I then started the discussion with Ken, who had been in discussion with you guys, intimately. And that they'd pared it down. ~ Colm Feore

This script was just so much smarter than usual and I'm just fascinated by human behavior. ~ Angelina Jolie

I find that most of my scripts have a lot more scenes than most films, so the average movie might have 100 scenes, my average script has 300 scenes. ~ Steven Zaillian

I started writing because I wanted to write scripts, but I wasn't very good at it. Then I started writing short stories, sort of as treatments for the film scripts, and I found I enjoyed writing short stories far more than I enjoyed writing film scripts. Then the short stories got longer and longer and suddenly, I had novels. ~ Jasper Fforde

I don't like to write any music to a script. Experience has taught me that's generally a waste of time. ~ Cliff Martinez

The fascinating thing about the studio was that there was no story department. They would put a little notice up on the bulletin board saying: 'The next Oswald will take place at the North Pole. Anybody having any gags, please turn them in before such a date.' If you turned in gags regularly, the way Tex Avery, Cal Howard, Jack Carr and two or three others of us did, you'd be called into the gag meeting. The group would go into Walt's office and talk about whatever the subject of the cartoon was. Walt would put it into some kind of form and that was the story
no scripts, no storyboards. ~ Walter Lantz

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten. ~ Francis Ford Coppola

I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet. ~ Tom Cruise

I used to dance a lot when I was younger. And I didn't want to stop doing it. I auditioned for drama school and then, luckily, I got my first job. There was never really a particular moment, more like moments of "I love this," or scripts that you read, or films that you watch, or plays that you see, that make you want to keep doing it. ~ Jenna Coleman

What happens is that as the scripts are rewritten and re-edited in order to make the story more compelling, you sometimes end up with what you could call a time singularity - where there's no way for everything that happens to happen in real time. It's something that you need to wink at. ~ Michael Loceff

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. ~ Steve Kanaly

I wonder if I would have been capable of producing anything if I worked in a more conventional way with a prewritten script, because I'm of the procrastinator class. ~ Mike Leigh

I don't have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, 'Has Bob read ours yet?' ~ Bob Newhart

On Phantom ... I listened to the music while I was reading the script. And it had just blown me away. I really ... I was so excited about it. It's been a long time since I really got so excited about something. ~ Gerard Butler

The way I sometimes approach my work, when I look at a script for the first time, is to identify what the archetypes are and what the writing is trying to do in that context. ~ Sarah Gadon

A writer is a performer as well. A writer isn't the literary department. That gets tried on but nothing's a script unless a good writer goes away and does his thing alone. ~ William Monahan

I think it's the same thing for a country. We are lucky then that we can get some financing from the government, because it means when I get the money, when I get the grant to do the film, of course it's based on the script, but I have total artistic control and I can do personal stuff. ~ Philippe Falardeau

As a director, my job is to protect. I protect scripts, actors, cameramen, designers. ~ Stephen Frears

A lot of screenwriters have a drawer of unsold scripts that they cut their teeth on. I don't have one. Everything I've written, after my first spec, I wrote on assignment. Everything I've written was work. ~ Jon Spaihts

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. ~ Joanne Froggatt

My screenwriting credits in my career are probably not dissimilar to some other ones in the sense that a lot of the scripts you write don't get made, and the ones that do get made are certainly - as a writer, they're not your vision. ~ Dan Gilroy

The past is a script we are constantly rewriting. ~ Michael Moorcock

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. ~ Andy Serkis

When what's around you - such as scripts, or like me being on the show and playing 18, now me doing this film playing 18 - it's kind of been what's been there for me. ~ Shane West

I think it's incumbent on actresses to bring something else to the part which isn't in the script. ~ Natascha McElhone

I've gotten much better at multi-tasking. It's hard, though. But, writing a script is not totally focused. You're taking little breaks, all the time. If a kid runs in, you give 'em a horsey ride. It's a pretty fluid process. ~ Matt Damon

Modern American war is as easy to script as a B movie. ~ David Hackworth

I don't see the script as just a springboard for my interpretation. You do your best to serve the vision writers have - not by removing yourself from the equation, but by trying to filter what they intended through your artistry. ~ Joe Mantello

I remember like that scene with Pharrell where they're at the music video shoot, we have this on camera actually, Pharrell's confused because we weren't doing the script. We were doing all this improv and then Diddy says to him ... Pharrell's like I don't understand what's going on and Diddy goes, "We do a lot of improv". (laughter) I remember being we just made him into a comedy nerd. We somehow turned Sean Combs into a comedy nerd, so. ~ Nicholas Stoller

I ain't the first on the list that people are sending scripts to. I'm very lucky. I've managed to put myself in the position with some directors, who will be calling me directly, and we're working on things and talking about things, but that's on a purely creative level. ~ Christian Bale

The amount of work that TV writers and executives do is incredibly hard. I'm shocked that these people will hand in three outlines and two scripts, and everybody has to read them and give notes on all of them, even the writers. ~ Zak Penn

Your mind just goes to the craziest idea to lure people into the theater, and then you write your script around those elements. ~ Robert Rodriguez

Ever since the movie premiered at Cannes, I've had a sudden surge of scripts and interest. ~ Berenice Bejo

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down. ~ Gurinder Chadha

I think when you're a bigger star you get many good scripts sent to you, and you have to choose which one you're going to gravitate toward, but I just try to gravitate toward the best-written one that's been thrown my way after a lot of girls have passed on it. ~ Amanda Peet

I'm a big believer in rehearsal and a big believer in the actors being able to find the material themselves and identify with the beats themselves without us having to stick to the actual language of the script, just for them to understand what each scene is about. ~ Dean Israelite

There is no singular meaning of wife. That is the point. That is its meaning. To see the wife fully through a multi-faceted lens is one of the central challenges facing society in the twenty-first century. To do this, new scripts are required that employ wife as a verb and as a gender-neutral concept. These are essential if we are to create necessary new narratives, new ways of living as women and men together. ~ Anne Kingston

I wrote lots of scripts that never got made and they were terrible. I thought they were good at the time. You can't write two scripts and expect your career to take off. Keep writing. Be you. Be original. A lot of people go for a genre, which is fine if you can do that really well, but we all have such layered histories. We all come from a unique background. Write about your past, write about you. Or make stuff up, but make it about something that really matters. ~ Nicole Holofcener

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. ~ Sally Hawkins

Okay, I am happy with the way I look, but I have never, never, ever thought of myself as a 'pretty girl.' Honestly. When I read some of these scripts I'm sent, and they describe the heroine as 'incredibly beautiful,' I wonder why they sent it to me. ~ Anna Kendrick

I always knew that someone was going to come at me with a script to play God. It's just one of those things, the way your career is unfolding and all the talk about gravitas etc etc, so I had a strong feeling that someone was going to offer me the part of God. I was totally prepared to say, 'Thanks but no thanks,' unless it was a comedy. ~ Morgan Freeman

It fills me with dismay sometimes when you look at the scripts that do come to you that are primarily focused on violence. There are so many other things to play around with. ~ Richard C. Armitage

There are scripts when you fall so much in love with your character. And if you are lucky and offered this part, you should not tempt your fate and go to the greatest extent to be/to play this character. If you have an opportunity to do that and you do not, it's shameful. ~ Sofia Vassilieva

I'm reading a lot of scripts. It makes my career decisions in that sense much the same way I consume media. ~ Jessica Pare

The better the script is the more you can commit,but you can only really commit with full confidence when you know the material is as strong as your level of commitment to it and it frees you up. ~ James McAvoy

Even anthropologists, who diligently train themselves to be nonjudgmental observers of cultural differences, have trouble when it comes to recognizing and allowing for cultural differences in emotions. Because our emotions come into our consciousness unbidden and often surprise us with their intensity, we often assume that they are not influenced by cultural cues or social scripts. But with careful study, anthropologists have learned that emotions are not like muscle reflexes; rather, they are communications with deep and sometimes obscure meanings. Cultures differ not only in their response to specific events... but also in more global ways. ~ Ethan Watters

Most of the time I've worked with directors who write their own scripts. The story is more important to me than the part. The project of the film has always been more important to me. ~ Catherine Deneuve

At the end of the day you do have to write a short novel beforehand, called a script, before you can make a movie. ~ Louis Garrel

In what must surely be considered one of the great lost scripts of history (or a Saturday Night Live sketch), Chase brought his usual sensibility to a trial run, having Kevin discover The Catcher in the Rye and start smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and conversing with the shade of Holden Caulfield. ~ Brett Martin

We've all had to rewrite the scripts of our lives the last few weeks. We've learnt a lot and we've had to figure out what's important, what matters – what really matters. It's been quite a time. ~ John Marsden

Night had fallen, and Diane admired the deep sky behind Steve's calm countenance. They looked into each other's eyes again and felt the spark and excitement of discovery. As if to celebrate the perfect, life-enabling distance of the earth from the sun, Diane and Steve kissed again."
"-The Grand Unified Story (a Short Story) from Stories and Scripts: an Anthology ~ Zack Love

It's never a script that makes me decide to accept a film or not. ~ Jean-Louis Trintignant

The ideal time for writing a [television] script is four days, though sometimes it has to be two or three days depending on the deadline. If it's two days, sometimes there are things I see that don't work as well. If I have two weeks, the scripts get kind of flabby and lack the adrenaline that a sense of deadline fills you with. ~ David E. Kelley

Sometimes I will read the whole script just to see what my character is doing, but I won't touch a script that I'm not in because it's just so much more exciting as a fan to me to watch the show as it's happening. ~ Gabrielle Dennis

Flying is my favorite time in the world. When I'm sitting in a plane, it's amazing because it's quiet and there's no cell phones and no one to talk to you. It's my favorite time. I read all my scripts. I catch up on my movies. I sleep. It's the best. There's no one telling you, "Time to go!" ~ Priyanka Chopra

A script is like a theory of a movie. ~ John C. Reilly

I've got one outlet now - music - and it's great to be able to sign someone that excites me. I'd like to also be able to do that with the scripts I get or books or TV shows ... I'm not going to limit myself. ~ Guy Oseary

For me, my rule in this industry is I've got to listen to my butterflies. So if I got butterflies, then those are the scripts I go after. ~ Shailene Woodley

Whenever I'm offered something, I always read the script and meet the director. I still appreciate just being considered. ~ Steve Carell

How do you top 'Mormon?' I get sent scripts all the time and I don't know what I would do next. What do you do after that? So I think if you do see me onstage, you'll see me in something dramatic, maybe, or you'll see me try my hand at something else. Perhaps fail, terribly, but try. ~ Josh Gad

We have written a draft of the script in every calendar year since [2010]. Quite honestly. Our Deadpool file is ... full, to capacity. ~ Paul Wernick

I think it's very rare, as an actor, that you get to a script, or an idea of a script, and you go, "Oh, I just have to do that!" It fell into place very quickly. ~ Oliver Jackson-Cohen