You know I've never worked without a script before, but with Apatow, it's all improvisation. He calls out a premise, and you have to adapt.
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.
Theater is so precious about each word - not that it's a bad thing, but you definitely never stray from the script.
Once I'm committed to a role, I will go very deep into it, even when I'm not at work. I'll keep on studying the script, maybe 40 or 50 times. I might call a scriptwriter at three in the morning to say I've thought of something new.
When you read a play, the words speak to you. When you read a script, there's no way you can tell if that's the way that movie will turn out.
When I'm shooting, I don't care who the star is. I have an actor playing a part, and I'm serving the script, not serving anyone's career.
No one looks at your hands to see how much they shake when you are interviewed to be a surgeon. The physical skills required are no greater than for writing cursive script. If an operation requires so much skill only a few surgeons can do it, you modify the operation to make it simpler.
Every time I read a script, I see the movie in my head, and I try to see the best movie in my head because everybody interprets the movie differently.
What's interesting for me is that I generally consider myself to be more of a physical actor, and I'm somebody that doesn't really want to use the dialogue but prefers to act through my body, and then sometimes when I have a script, I look and kind of throw away the dialogue and I just look at how I can expressive it through my body.
If the script grabs me and appeals to me, I'm really very keen to work on it.
Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with. And then my job is almost done, with a great script, obviously.
When I wrote 'Kidulthood,' I didn't even know there was going to be a 'Kidulthood.' I just wanted to test myself to see if I could write a script.
The thing that was most harmful was that there was always something that was about to happen. So I found myself indulging in the writer's luxury of doing another draft, another idea. If this project isn't happening, then I'll shelve one script and start writing another. And in that way, the years go by, and there's very little money coming in.
I have been an Avengers fan since the middle 1960s. I grew up with them, and I've imagined a hundred different versions of an Avengers movie. I think I even have a script I wrote back in eighth grade, 'Avengers vs. the Mole Man.' Truly dreadful, but a work of love.
We would change out of costume, then we would read the next days script.
You need a director, a script, and a role to justify a risk.
My number one passion is acting, but I also think there's something so special in being able to support a script and an idea and take it all the way through to fruition. I think that process is so rewarding.
If you see a bad live action film, what are the conclusions you draw? Typically, it is that they made a bunch of mistakes, a bad script, wrong casting. You get into 2D, and you get a few films that are not strong films. And what is the conclusion? That it's 2D? I beg to differ. It's a convenient excuse, but it's just wrong.
I think with the smaller-scale projects, the burden for success falls more squarely on the shoulders of the actors and the director and the script.
Dave Chappelle asked me to come do his show. I read the script, and I said, 'Has he lost his mind?'
If you're an actor, you're at the mercy of a script. You've got far more control if you're the photographer.
When I was nine, the teacher asked us to write a piece about our village fete. He read mine in class. I was encouraged and continued. I even wanted to write my memoirs at the age of ten. At twelve I wrote poetry, mostly about friendship - 'Ode to Friendship.' Then my class wanted to make a film, and one little boy suggested that I write the script.
Your structure and format may not be perfect, and you may not have picked the perfect franchise, but if I pick up a script, and the characters are real, whole, complicated and come from a place of somebody who really is feeling it, that's what people remember.
Early on, I joined that large group of show business cadets who were 'multi-hyphenates,' 'independents,' 'self produced' or 'alternately financed.' Sometimes, most times, I've had to do it all: raise the money, write the script, produce, direct and act in the film.
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. It's as close to theater as you can get.
Offers come all the time, but I'm pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I'm just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.
When I'm the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I'll call it my script.
When you write a script, you always think about what your heart is asking.
It so depends on each script, because you can say... I always thought I wouldn't have wanted to do something that was kind of like as big and commercial as 'The Dark is Rising,' but I really liked the script. I thought it was really clever.
I've been fired from a situational comedy with a script they wrote specifically for me because of my voice.
It took 17 years to get 'Rambling Rose' made from the time Calder Willingham wrote the script adapted from his novel. Ed Scherick, the producer, was interested in it. Martha Coolidge was interested in directing it.
When I was 16, I got 'Jamon, Jamon.' Of course, I had to lie about my age. And I had to lie to my parents about the content of the script.
I just take every script as it comes along and take it from there.
The business of taking a book and transforming into a script to make this thing called a film - it's a mysterious process to me; sometimes it works.
Stories matter to me. I look for a good script, story, and a strong part.
I always feel like a script is a recipe, and then you bring the elements into the recipe, and you cook with it.
