Carlton Cuse Quotations

The creative process is not like a situation where you get struck by a single lightning bolt. You have ongoing discoveries, and theres ongoing creative revelations. Yes, its really helpful to be marching toward a specific destination, but, along the way, you must allow yourself room for your ideas to blossom, take root, and grow.

We feel like 'Lost' deserved a real resolution, not a 'snow globe, waking up in bed, it's all been a dream, cut to black' kind of ending. We thought that would be kind of a betrayal to an audience that's been on this journey for six years. We thought that was not the right ending for our show.

I feel like if you enjoyed the 119 hours that precede the finale of 'Lost,' is that whole experience ruined by the fact that you might not agree with everything that we did in the finale? I would hope not! I would hope that you would appreciate the fact that you were entertained for 119 hours even if you didn't love the finale.

'Lost' is about a bunch of people stranded on an island. It's compelling, but kind of tiny. But what sustains you are the characters.

As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.

I can't say that the ending of a story is always the best part of the story, and yet there's sort of this implicit idea that the finale is somehow supposed to be the mind-blowing best episode of a show. The question is: Why is that? Why do people make that assumption?

One of the things that's, I think, hard in television is that there's a certain sameness to a lot of television because you're working in a very constricted box, and the box is defined by the amount of money you have to spend and the amount of time you have to get ready.

That's one of the reasons why 'Lost' has to end: because we can't sit around and envision, 'What is the flashback for Jack in year nine?' It doesn't realistically exist.

I think 'North by Northwest' and 'Rope' and Rear Window' and 'Psycho' are on my list of favorite all time movies. I just think his kind of command as a director was almost unparalleled, and I feel like in certain ways the sort of character-based thriller owes more to Hitchcock than anyone.

Tragedy is a great storytelling form. It worked extremely well for Shakespeare. It worked extremely well for Jim Cameron with Titanic.

I think 'Lost' was really a pioneer in the use of the kind of connection between a television show and the Internet, and the Internet really gave fans an opportunity to create a community around the show. That was something that wasn't really planned; it just sort of grew up in the wake of the show.

I think there's this essential human desire to have a unified field theory. Everyone is like, 'I want to unlock the single secret to 'Lost.' There isn't any one secret. There is not a unified field theory for 'Lost,' nor do we think there should be, because philosophically, we don't buy into that as a conceit.

I took physics, and lo and behold, there's a lot of physics in 'Lost.' I think for most people, liberal arts educations are more abstract, but for me, it's been a chance to apply the things I've learned more directly. I also took some Folklore and Mythology classes, and I think that a lot of that influenced me.

If you go to a movie and it's a great experience, the experience at the end of it is always like this sadness that it's over, that your time with these characters is finished. There's almost like an achy feeling that I have when I go to a movie that I love and it ends.

When you're a storyteller, part of the process of storytelling is the kind of communion you form with the audience to whom you're telling your story. If some segment of the audience doesn't like that story, it doesn't feel good.

I love 'Titanic' and the idea that you're kind of rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to survive despite the fact that you know that they're not going to.

I didn't know at all I wanted to do TV. I thought I might go to law school. I might want to become a history professor.

I really think that as good of a job as you do as a writer, you're absolutely indebted to the actors that have to deliver that material.

I think everyone in Hollywood works on multiple things because you never know what's going to happen with your projects.

Ironically, I wouldn't say I'm a massive horror fan. I love thrillers.

We should just go back to, like, episode 30 and re-break from there and just make it a spaceship. That would be the unexpected reboot of 'Lost.'

As we began working toward the finale of 'Lost,' I knew there was no possible ending that was going to be universally loved, and I accepted that. We ended the story the way we wanted it to end, and we stand by it. On my Twitter feed, I still get ten to fifteen positive comments for every negative one.

Both my wife and I went to Harvard, and it's incredibly exciting that our son and daughter are going there and have the chance to experience it. There are many awesome opportunities at Harvard. That's one of its greatest frustrations - not having enough time to take the classes you want to take.

'Brisco' was the first show I created, and of course, at the time I had no idea what a special experience it was because I didn't have a frame of reference. After it was over I was like, 'Damn. Shoot. That was something special.' I'm still upset that it got cancelled.

I think movie and television companies are in the business of making money, and if you have a franchise, eventually you'll want to exploit that franchise and revisit it. So I assume at some point someone will do another story in the 'Lost' world.

I think that 'Lost' is a bit of a dinosaur in terms of the type of show it is. The economics just don't support making a show this big and complicated profitable enough for a network.

We know what the ending is seriously. This is a show that demands an ending. We want to find out what is the fate of these people. Do they get off the island? What is the nature of the island? I mean there are some big fundamental questions that you want answered at the end of this show.

There are just so many options that people have. But as a writer, you'll drive yourself crazy, if you worry about that too much. People watch a lot of TV, so they think certain things are going to happen, and you're always trying to subvert expectations.

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

You have to be able to get inside the heads of the characters and completely sympathize and understand them

The Following and Hannibal are really well made, but the tone is very consistently dark.

It's entirely possible that the notion of what is the past, what is the present and what is the future, could change.

I think that the best television now is giving you a three-act experience.

I think that we're moving into this new phase of television where audiences are really embracing stories with a beginning, middle, and end.

It's a very artistic process to translate and adapt a book into a series.

'Lost' is driving toward an ending, and that ending is: Are these people getting off this island? What is the nature of this island? What is going to happen to them? What is their ultimate fate? What is their ultimate destiny? Those questions need to get answered.

If we lived in a time where people couldn't watch 'Lost' on Hulu or record it on their DVR, we wouldn't necessarily have succeeded. We need people to be able to catch up. Now you choose when you watch TV. We wouldn't have survived in the old days because people would have missed episodes.

There is a natural progression to 'Lost,' and as the story goes forward, it's going to change. It's not a static story. The franchise of 'Lost' is not characters sitting on a beach.

I think we very much want to put those things into the show that lead to discussion and analysis and that's what makes the show engaging. It's not a show in which everything is spoon-fed to you, which is the problem with a lot of American television. There is room for ambiguity in this story.

I think we've made a bold choice in terms of how to answer that question. Some people will not like it, but I think a lot of people will like it, but no one will accuse us of copping out and taking the easy solution, or making a choice that is just confounding, like going into the hatch and finding another hatch.

We purposely design the show with a big amount of ambiguity so people can theorize about what a certain scene means. This allows the fans to participate in the process of discovery.

The experience of reading a book is always unique. I believe that you render a version of the story, when you read a book, in a way that is unique and special to each person who reads it.

We were really surprised, but really pleased, that that did not get spoiled.

When 'Lost' was over, we expected that there'd be some people who'd really like it and other people who wouldn't. The Emmy nominations are an indication to us that there were a fair number of people who did like the way we concluded our story.

Twin Peaks' looms large to me as cautionary tale,

TV showrunners have become known entities to people who watch television in the way that movie directors have been known to filmgoers for a long time. When I started out as a writer and producer in television, I never had the slightest expectation that fame would be part of the job.

Being a showrunner meant writing and producing a television show, period, but with 'Lost,' suddenly it became part of the job to promote and be the face of the brand. In a weird way, the story was as much the star as any of the actors, so people wanted to hear from us.

The show is the mother ship, but I think with all the new emerging technology, what we've discovered is that the world of Lost is not basically circumscribed by the actual show itself.

The thing we love most about Hurley is he's somehow able to say what people are saying in their living rooms just about the time people are saying it. We thought everyone's expectation would be for her to have a black husband. We wanted to confound everyone's expectation. Everyone would be looking for the 50-year-old black guy.

Television used to be made much more in a vacuum; the only feedback the audience had for a long time was in a Nielsen number that would arrive sometime after the show had been broadcast. And now, people are just completely engaged on so many levels, and I think that you have to find a way as a show creator to follow your own compass.

Sometimes the fans want it both ways, of course. They want to feel like they're influencing the show, and at the same time, they want to think that showrunners have the story all mapped out in our brains. But it can't be both. In truth, we were usually far ahead of the fan feedback.

The mistake they made was hanging everything on the question of who killed Laura Palmer. In our show there is not one overriding question comparable to that. There are a series of mysteries: what is the nature of the island, what is the monster, what is the hatch, who are the mysterious 'other people'? Making sure that some of those mysteries are answerable over time is the way to prevent that frustration.

The most difficult story that I've ever been involved in breaking on any of my shows was 'The Constant' episode of 'Lost,' which was when Desmond was consciousness-traveling.

That is very much going to be at the forefront of all the new labor negotiations, particularly with the Writers Guild, because writers are at the center of television series production and all of these new ideas are ultimately writer-based. Right now, our involvement in this is about being involved in the cutting edge of these emerging technologies and learning how it works.

I'm a big baseball fan, and I feel proprietary about the Dodgers. I'm not the owner. I'm not the manager. But I feel passionate about the decisions that they make, and I take it personally when they make decisions I don't like.

In Hollywood, there is no bigger commitment you can make than to a TV series. Even marriages pale in comparison. Marriages don't require signing iron-clad multiyear contracts. At least, most first marriages don't.

By coming to an agreement, the quality and integrity of the stories we tell in this new medium will be consistent with that of the network show.

This idea that you can watch a show like 'True Detective,' and it was awesome, but is it really ruined for you if the finale is not your favorite episode of it? It's just odd to me.

The genre aspects of the show are cool, and we have fun doing it. But I am much more engaged by the people on the show, and I think that is fundamentally what we try to do.

The job of being a television show-runner has evolved and there's all these new aspects to it. It's good because there are additional avenues open for content. We have ways of expressing ideas we have for the show that wouldn't fit into the television series. But it's hard to manage our time. And we honestly put most of our time and attention on the show itself - that still is the bread and butter of our existence.