Script Quotes

You can't do things for money. You just can't act them. There's gotta be something about the script that you really want to do. I wouldn't do a job if I didn't think I could do the best work I possibly could.

I think that whenever there's a good script we try to make that happen, but it's all based off of a good story, a good script, but I don't believe you should do it just because it's African-American.

They sent me the script, asking me to play the part of a general. I have never played the part of an authority figure. I've never thought of myself that way. I was uncomfortable with it, but I worked at it and knew I had a guttural voice for a general.

My experience is that's rare - that you have a script that is... what they call 'film-ready.'

I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That's very important.

I read the script for Wonder Boys, and I said that was almost perfect, it was so classy, cool and funny. It's a really specific thing. We stuck to it, it turned out good and a lot of people liked it.

All this flying around got on my nerves. But then I gave the script to Cathy to get her opinion. When she started to laugh, it was like 'That's it!'. I went to LA and I got the part.

If it's a modern-day story dealing with certain ethnic groups, I think I could open up certain scenes for improvisation, while staying within the structure of the script.

Even before my audition, there were several pages missing from my script because those bits were so unbelievably secret not even I was allowed to see them.

Are Christians too stupid that we can't write a script, we can't film a movie OR we don't know how to act?

Back then, it was more or less we couldn't change a line in our script. We weren't allowed to change lines. Today, actors change everything and won't do parts. It's very different today. Back then, the producers were in charge. Today actors are more in charge.

I've done about six comedies. Oddly enough, the script came to me from one of the guys in Platoon.

The thing I noticed about Jack was when we did a reading of the script, just to warm up.

When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.

Normally when I'm sent a script I'll read it through to see how it hangs as a story and then I'll go back and read it through again and look at the character.

You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes right in the bin.

It's never a script that makes me decide to accept a film or not.

I'm doing another Churchill. I did a Churchill for HBO and that was up to 1939 and there's talk of the war years. They were going to do it this fall, but the script wasn't going to be ready.

My Brilliant Career was beautifully directed, but I had a bit of trouble with myself in it. It was a silly script, based on a book this 16-year-old girl wrote.

If the story's interesting and it's a compelling script, I'd be thrilled to be a part of it.

When the script for 'The Wrestler' kept coming to me I said, This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, 'No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn't a good actor,' whatever Hollywood thinks of me.

When I read a script and have my first interaction with this character, do I feel like there's something I'm gonna' learn here? If I feel like it's something I've done before, then what's the incentive for me to do it?

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.

Originality is, for me, the most important quality in a script.

And I tell ya, when I sit in that sound booth and started reading the script and starting to get into the character, man, it's an easy jump for me, because I understand what it's all about.

Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions?

Hopefully, as I get older in the business, I make my choices more accurately, and I perhaps know from either the script or the first meeting that it isn't going to work.

I like both music and acting, and they both have a lot in common - timing, immediacy, stuff like that. But acting is more regimented. You wait around for hours, you don't get to write the script, you get hired. Music represents me better. I'm not acting; I'm just expressing myself.

We had a script that was really solid and we knew how we were going to shoot and how the energy of it was going to go. So it gave us a lot of freedom to use the camera as a character.