Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
I'm not put off so much by first-time directors if the script is great. If the script isn't there, I'm not there.
If I had even the tiniest scrap of advice to give to a young actor who was figuring out how to audition, I would say don't memorize the script... The reality about auditions is that 98 percent of the results has to do with what you are, not with what you did in the audition.
I was a little bit wary of playing Nicholas. In the script, which I think is true of the novel and the film, he's the only character not singing and dancing in a musical style. Playing someone who is the personification of good is a little difficult.
Ultimately, as an actor, it comes down to committing to the text in the script.
I was a novelist first. But in the mid-'80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, 'You know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.'
I've turned down jobs because I've said, 'Honestly, I can't find my way in. I can't do it. I love you, as a director. I think the script is good. You deserve better than I think I can do.'
For me, I never take a job thinking it's going to grab ratings or that it's even going to be a success. I don't. I just take the job because I love the character. Or I love the script. Maybe I love the director. But whatever I do, I never think about how it will do. That is not in my hands.
I like it when a script shows you something new, and you can learn something through the journey of a film rather than being told things you already know.
I don't watch many films. I just make sure my directors are really good. I will work even with a debut director, but the one-hour narration of the script should be mind-blowing.
Improv definitely made me a better auditioner, without a doubt. We did do an audition semester in grad school, and that was helpful for those times that you have a script and you have a few days to prepare it, to really work on sides. But the auditions I was doing in New York, if you got it the night before, you were very lucky.
When there's a good script, everybody circles.
You know when you've found a part that you want to play. You know it because the part takes you over. It sits in the script waiting for you to play him.
I'm a sucker for a funny script. And then, as soon as I don't wanna be, one comes along and grabs me.
Typically, I work with the script and the director for awhile before, just to make sure we're on the same page.
Why do only the Latin script when Nokia has a billion consumers? Typography is the bedrock of communication; it can really connect people.
In writing 'William Shakespeare's Star Wars,' I had the freedom to go beyond the original script and add asides, soliloquys and even new scenes. The main characters all get a soliloquy or two - or in Luke's case, several.
When I read the script and saw the jazz music setting, and when I read the name of the filmmaker was Damien Chazelle, I immediately got this mental image of Antoine Fuqua.
In our case, we have no script. So the only people we can work with are people who have been working with us in the past, and they know we are going to do something; it's kind of a trust.
Sometimes you see things in a script, and it doesn't necessarily mean the director sees the same things. And if you think you're going to be making a different film, then that's not gonna work.
I consider my job as a screenwriter to pack a script with possibilities and ideas - to create a feast for the filmmaker to pick from.
I love being on stage if I'm not on a set. If I'm at home, I'm usually in my office editing or reconstructing my website or whatever it may be. I just love putting creativity into a performance, so if the right script comes along, and I certainly am reading comedies and dramas now, then I'm ready willing and able to give it a shot.
We had a teacher in school who would organize dramatic shows. And she decided to put on a show about - I don't know whether you remember - 'Ferdinand the Bull', the comic script. However, she decided, you're going to sing Ferdinand, me, as a role.
With 'The Last Picture Show,' Peter Bogdanovich brought the script to the company that made it. They liked it, and they gave him the money he needed to make the film. He cast it with the actors that he thought were right for the parts. Now, it's the reverse.
If you want someone to show up and execute your script for you, seriously, there are a lot of great people out there. Don't call me.
It often takes a couple of years to get a script right and then takes a couple of years to get financing together.
Once you start getting big roles as an actor, everything pays. So what are you making decisions on? It's about the director or the script or whatever. But before you reach that point, you're taking jobs with, say, a theater company, in spite of the fact that it's not paying your bills.
I try to steer away from doing something that's just commercial instead of sticking to a good script.
When you're playing a real person, there's a balance between playing the person in the script and playing the person as he was in life. You have to be respectful and true to who that person was, but at the same time tell the story in the film.
Actually, it was first a movie called Gale Force, which was a hurricane movie. That script never came together, and then the same deal was replaced with Cliffhanger.
I can't tell you the number of stories I've told with a female protagonist don't get bought, or they do get bought and get changed drastically. Or, I will literally write into the script different races, and they get cast all-white. I hope that stops and it opens the door for more voices to be heard in movies.
I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You'd like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there's a problem with the script.
People don't understand how much time and work it takes to make somebody laugh, and how hard it is to write a script, to put together the story, the characters. When everyone laughs simultaneously, there's no greater feeling.
I have always thought if you are going to make a film, it's much better to have an original script that will play to film's strengths.
I've had various experiences where I've been called by Hollywood studios to look at a script or comment on various scientific ideas that they're trying to inject into a story.
These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.
