Scripts Quotations | Page 3

It's a weird thing when you spend your life trying to find these great scripts and great parts. You are reading scripts, you are traveling the world, you are hassling your agent. You are trying to find that script.

I remember reading 'Disturbia,' one of the first scripts I ever got, and I go 'Pfft, who wants to make a movie about a guy in a house?'

My dad's got a brilliant eye for scripts 'cos he's a literary agent. He and my agent read a load of scripts and filter them.

I learned how to write television scripts the same way I have learned to do almost everything else in my entire life, which is by reading.

I've got a big closet of scripts, and a big stack of scripts on the side of my desk, because you get a whole bunch. Nothing's going to be perfect, and I realize that; but I am a perfectionist, so you go through a lot of stuff.

Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based.

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.

At this point, I'm happy to be part of something special. As an actor I liked to choose scripts that I'm passionate about.

So often, I read scripts and am like, 'This would never happen in real life. It's not trying to be funny. It's trying to be serious.

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.

Now it's a fully realized production but for the fact that we're holding our scripts in our hand and some of us used them, and some of us didn't and you have to by union rules hold the script. You don't have to use them but you gotta hold them.

I've definitely had a bunch of action scripts sent to me, but again I'm a stickler for directors. If it's, like, an action flick with a great director, then it's like, 'Oh let's look at this thing,' but if it's just like a shoot-em'-up with a first time director, I don't know if that's the trajectory I want to take with what I'm doing.

It's really interesting with scripts, because you never really know. It's paper and it could be great or awful. Even scripts that are good could end up not working.

If I have a script, I tend to stick to it even if God may be leading me elsewhere in the moment.

Scripts are corny and predictable. Real life is always better.

'Groundhog Day' was one of the greatest scripts ever written. It didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award.

It is a difficult one, as you get scripts where women are just objects.

I think, because I've been working for a while, I've been working since I was ten, I had the fortune of reading a lot, a lot of scripts.

I read every script from beginning to end, and I read every draft that I can. I like the show, I like the character, and I want to protect both of those things.

You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.

I've been fortunate. I don't pick scripts. Scripts pick me.

I don't work for production houses. I only work for good scripts and roles. If you follow my career graph, you will find that I have not given a single flop yet in my career. I am proud of it.

The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny.

It can have an enormous effect because big budget movies can have big budget perks, and small budget movies have no perks, but what is the driving force, of course, is the script, and your part in it.

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.

I was not the kind of a principal player that was so in demand that eight or 10 or 12 scripts came per month.

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.

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.

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.

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

From the very start of all of this, my mom has read the scripts first. And if she liked something, she let me read it. She told our agent what kinds of parts that we would want.

It's not like I have boxes of scripts arriving at my door.

I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.

I'm reteaming with the producers of 'Twilight' on an awesome script. It's very serious, dramatic and different for me. I'm excited to see what's next. I love all aspects of film and all genres.

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.

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.

The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part's not that great.

Lot of the scripts I've been in with other non-white actors haven't been great. Lot of non-white actors ain't all that great.

I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.

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.

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the character was written a little more generic.

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

I liked it because it was such a dangerous script and showed just what human beings are capable of. Here was a movie in which Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, who always win in every movie they ever do, simply don't win. I felt that was outrageous for a commercial movie.

I respond to a part just intuitively when I read a script.

It was easier to do Shakespeare than a lot of modern movie scripts that are so poorly written.

Quite often, I'll be sent a script for a movie. And I find that I like it, so I say I'll do it. But then they rewrite it for me. They make it quirky. Odd. I find that rather annoying. I call it Walkenising.

I find it really hard to even read another script while shooting.

My own mentality is that I've retired. They send me these scripts and if I absolutely have to do it, then I go to work.

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.

Anyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.

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.

I read a lot of scripts and so many are clearly a knockoff of one familiar genre or another.

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

There are definitely reasons to do certain things, but I like to stick to good director, good actor, good script.

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.

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.

Writing is a hard gig, and it's hard to convey a lot. That's why scripts tend to be a little bit overwritten.

J. J. Abrams is a director that I've admired for a long time, from the very first scripts he wrote - including 'Regarding Henry,' which I was in.

I'm an optimist; I always hope that each new script is going to be a great story.

Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing.

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 would consider doing any part as long as the script is good and the film has an interesting director.

I'm always attracted to lower budget, not because it's lower budget, but because they tend to be better scripts.

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.

I'm so touched that complete strangers will send me a script asking me to be in their film. That still amazes me - and sometimes for a lot of money too.

I don't get a lot of romantic comedy scripts.

I can't even read a script. I've tried and it's painful to watch.

I only sound intelligent when there's a good script writer around.

I hope to be involved in a successful movie script.

In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.

When I make a film - I direct my own film, I write my own script - that's what I want to hear from the audience. 'Oh, thank you, Jackie!'

The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.

It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write.

When you first start out as an actor, you're just looking for a good part. As time goes on, if you're being held responsible for the movies themselves, you're looking for a good script all around.

I read a lot of scripts that I just don't find very funny.

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.

This basic thing I always do: 'What happened between the character's birth, and page one of the script?' Anything that's not in the story, I'll fill in the blanks.

The reason that some motion-capture films don't work is if the scripts are not good, and the characters aren't engaging, then you don't believe in the journey, and you're not connected to it. It's not the technology's fault.

When I'm working on the scripts or working with the other actors or rehearsing with the director, and when the director is cutting the movie, and we've shot the scene, the director is not looking at the visual effects.

You don't improvise with a Cameron Crowe script.

I don't really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

I like dialogue that is slightly more brittle than life. I have always admired and wished to write one of those 1940s film scripts where every line is written with a sharpness and economy that is frankly artificial.

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

I think that's all you can hope for as an actor when you read a script; that after the first thirty pages it has some meaning to it.

There's nothing better than finishing something and looking at it. Whether it be a script or a movie, it's this complete little thing that now exists and is hopefully immortal.

As hard as you try to write a good script and you have great intentions, this alchemy has to occur.

I have never turned to my girlfriend and said, Oh, okay, babe, and I see it in scripts all the time.

A movie's very different from the book, and it's different from the script, and it's usually one person's vision.

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.

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.

Writers would submit scripts to me, and if I liked one well enough to submit to magazine editors, I had the know-how whether the story was good or bad.

If you have a good script, that's what gets you involved. It's harder to write a good screenplay than to find something.

It's a lot of work to read a crummy script.

Of course, I'm not allowed to talk about the script, but I can say it is a really good story.