John Landgraf Quotations

There is a lot less overt bigotry in America.

On a creative level, I'd like to bring both shows back. But we tried to launch two shows (during the summer), and our resources were spread too thin. As painful as it is, we thought we should pick one (to renew). It was a really difficult decision because I really think 'Starved' has a lot of potential.

I said, 'This is not cheesy, this is not about putting a white bigot ... in with black people and watching them beat the crap out of each other and watching sparks fly. And it certainly wasn't about some kind of makeup-driven freak show.

People have very different perspectives and very different life experiences based on their ethnicity. When you put them in close quarters in a situation designed to highlight cultural and racial differences, you realize they don't really understand each other very well at all.

We really like the cast and were blown away by the consistency of the show in terms of comedy and Rob's ability to run it, ... We really believe in him and his compatriots.

We get more e-mails and mail on a daily basis about Nip/Tuck than any of our other series. It's clear that Ryan Murphy's unique vision for a show that is both addictive entertainment and a deeply penetrating critique of America's obsession with surface beauty has tapped into something very powerful.

We get more e-mails and mail on a daily basis about 'Nip/Tuck' than any of our other series.

You'd really have to be blind and deaf to watch the shows and never know--we make it quite clear they're adult shows for adults, ... Even though technically we're not regulated and there's nothing the FCC could do, we feel that we have little choice right now.

We didn't have the largest marketing budget for the comedies to begin with, and what we had, we split between two shows. In that respect, 'Sunny' didn't get its own real launch. But we love the show and think it's only going to get better.

The series was arguably the most critically acclaimed new television show of the year, a fact which made the decision not to renew it all the more difficult.

Your presense here today demonstrates the power to make a difference in a community. So let's get out today and have fun and get dirty.

They were kind of the undisputed leader in the late '90s in terms of quality television, and I don't think they are anymore.

I wanted to see if we could do a series which explored race in America and which two American families would actually live in each other's skin.

Once again, Denis and Peter have delivered a brilliant season, ... They continue to create wholly original storylines, which pull off the difficult task of blending riveting drama with raucous comedy. We're extremely proud of this show, which is one of the very best television has to offer.

I don't think I ever had any relationship with any showrunner, over time, with whom I didn't have conflict.

For me, personally, I'm more comfortable with what I would call third-person entertainment, meaning watching a character that's explicitly not me and experiencing something through a character's eyes, than what I would call first-person entertainment, which is a video game in which I am the character.

I think a shotgun or a handgun that has a six-round clip is a very good, perfectly adequate weapon for self-defense, in the home. You simply can't create that kind of mayhem, if you have to reload.

I think the possibility of continuing on a comedy is greater than a drama.

I believe really deeply in the pilot process because you learn things about tone and casting.

There are no characters in the limited series Fargo that are derived from the characters in the film Fargo. It's hard to describe how remarkably true to the film the show is.

We've actually bought quite a number of historical pieces. We are doing a piece on the abolitionists, Harper's Ferry and the abolitionist John Brown with Paul Giamatti.

If you think about how broadcast mini-series approach historical events, there is a hagiography. There has been a soft, very glossy idea about history. And one of the things I like about Game of Thrones, for example, is just the grit and the authenticity.

We also have a piece about the Mayflower, but it's just a very different, very gritty, very character-driven version of why those people were on that boat and what the experience was like for them, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and also the Native Americans and what the state of Native American society was at that time.

That's the definition of a mini-series. A mini-series is a show that has no continuing story or narrative elements between one group of episodes and another, so no, I wasn't surprised.

The amount of competition is just literally insane.

I think maybe the most important thing that I or anybody at my company and any of my colleagues can do is establish a trusting, productive, collaborative relationship with creative people.

I read every draft of every episode of every series produced at FX.

It is the pure arrogance of the newly rich and the newly powerful to think content is easy.

Reality television was in some ways being unimaginative at that time. We were excited about the possibilities of the form, to use real people as your stars, to not be about winning, to be about going on complicated, challenging, funny, dramatic journeys.