Kenneth Lonergan Quotations

I trust my judgment when I think it's boring, dull, tepid and not interesting. That's important to listen to. And the same on the set. That's a little easier because you can see it in front of you and you can just see how great they are and you know you have something wonderful when they do something wonderful.

Some actors really like to do only a few, some like Casey [Affleck] will do as many takes as there is electrical power. At some point, you'll say, "Listen, I think it's really good." And he'll say, "You sure? You sure? There's not some other way we should try it?"

When you have people like Casey [Affleck] and Michelle Williams and they want to do more takes you don't say, "Sorry, that's it." And I also don't like to say, "It's fine, it's great." Unless it's clearly there.

I like to let the actors work the way they want to.

I actually think storyboards are great. I don't draw well enough to do them myself. I've only used storyboards a couple of times.

Teenagers all think their life is a movie. If you break up with someone or you have a fight, you walk around with movie scores playing in your head. You sort of see yourself suffering as you're suffering. There's a lot of melodrama attached to the real events of your life.

I feel like if you can describe something fully and accurately, then people will be able to see it themselves - they don't need be told what to.

There's a few people who I've accumulated over the years who I really trust to show a first cut to and to be helpful rather than unhelpful.

I still haven't quite caught on to the idea of writing without dialogue. I like writing dialogue, and there's nothing wrong with dialogue in movies.

I was nearly a teen-ager before I stopped assuming that everyone I met was Jewish.