Film Script Quotes & Sayings

I keep every script from every film that I ever made because it's like a workbook of that time in my life. — Marguerite Moreau

In reviewing films, people get quite liberal about saying "the script" this and "the script" that, when they've never read the script any more than they've read the latest report on Norwegian herring landings. — William Monahan

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. — David Anders

But DNA isn't really like that. It's more like a script. Think of Romeo and Juliet, for example. In 1936 George Cukor directed Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in a film version. Sixty years later Baz Luhrmann directed Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in another movie version of this play. Both productions used Shakespeare's script, yet the two movies are entirely different. Identical starting points, different outcomes. — Nessa Carey

Well, I think there was a time when I first started that there was such a thing called 'a woman's film' and there were certain scripts that women would make. But I think that's changed a lot now. I think that if a woman director walks into a room with a script, it doesn't really matter what the subject matter is, or the genre is, so long as the financiers feel that the woman has the skills to make the film — Gurinder Chadha

I really would have been stupid not to have done it. It was also a film that was actually happening, I mean, Miramax was doing it, and it had a kind of legitimacy to it. And once I read the script, I was there. — Adam Arkin

In Canada, I've had success raising money. I think I was fortunate enough. But today, I would have to write a very, very bad script not to be financed for the next one. I'm assured at least of the next one, but you're always [only] as good as your last film. I think it's true for anyone. — Philippe Falardeau

When I was writing the script, I knew didn't want to make a sports movie. I was very clear that I wanted to make a sibling rivalry story. So when I was writing the script, the football was getting in the way of the drama. One day, I saw Michael Haneke's Funny Games, which is probably the most violent film I've ever seen - but the violence is off camera. When I finished watching the film, I said, 'Hey, that's what I have to do.' Haneke gave me this solution. — Carlos Cuaron

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it. — Wong Kar-Wai

My first book, about Ruby Ridge, was made into a miniseries on CBS in 1996, and since then, I've dabbled in Hollywood, pitched a few things, sold a couple of screenplays and a pilot that I wrote with a buddy from Spokane, flirted with seeing 'Citizen Vince' as a film, and most recently, adapted 'The Financial Lives of the Poets' as a script. — Jess Walter

In the film work, I love to work mainly from the script and from talking to the directors, so a lot of the music, big portions of the scores that I've made, have been composed before the movies were even shot. — Gustavo Santaolalla

All of a sudden, those few pages of script that he had shown me with the weird images I could visualize all of that in my brain, and I knew that there was this mad little genius at work here and I really wanted to do the film. — Jack Nance

If I get a note on my script or my films, what I say to a studio executive is that, 'You know, this is the film of my legacy, and I never want to be sitting in a theater looking up on the screen and seeing something that I don't believe in.' I will never do that. — Gina Prince-Bythewood

I knew her work very well and I knew that if she offered me a role in her movie, it wouldn't be something stupid. So I agreed to do the film before I read the script. — Beatrice Dalle

The reason for his seven-year hiatus in direction: My son Aditya made Mohabbatein (2000), which took a lot of time and energy. Then we started looking for a script for me to direct. Nothing seemed to excite us both. There's a complete bankruptcy of screenwriting in our cinema. I wanted a very earthy and Indian subject. I was tired of the promos on television. With semi-clad girls, they all looked the same. Of course Dhoom (2004) has them too. But I'd personally not make a film like that. — Yash Chopra

Right before I got 'Sons of Anarchy,' I actually quit acting for 18 months and didn't read a single script, and I wrote a film. I felt like I needed to do something that I had control over, as an artist, and also just do something where I felt like I had some control over my life, as just a human, out in the world. — Charlie Hunnam

For me, the work begins with a rough cut of the film. I can't do much with the script. I've tried to write music to a script prior to seeing the film, but I've found it turns out to be a waste of time. — Cliff Martinez

And I'm auditioning right now for a movie, and then I have a script that I'm reading right now for a horror film, and I'm meeting for a couple of television shows that I just had yesterday, and pretty much was offered one of them. — Trishelle Cannatella

On the set of an independent film you can tell that nobody is doing it for the money. Everyone is there because they love the script. A smaller budget sort of unifies everyone; it's a real team effort and that's amazing. But these opportunities just don't present themselves that often for me, so basically any chance I get to do something different I jump on it. — Will Ferrell

Seeing a film at the cinema, or a DVD or whatever at home, your brain is really receptive to not only whether the script's working, or if the actors are acting well, but also the colours. — Crispian Mills

As a screenwriter, there's so many layers you have to go through in order to tell your story. You have to write the script, get money for the script, shoot it, find distributors, make it into film festivals, all of that just to get to your audience. — Morley

Cinematography was incredibly foreign to me, so I read as much as I could about it. Once I figured out that it was just photography with a set shutter speed, I got some slide film and I just went about storyboarding the script and taking snapshots. I took a ton of time doing it just to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing. By the end of it I knew what the film was going to look like - my exposure and the composition and everything. I wasn't scared of cinematography anymore. — Shane Carruth

Film and television are just different. Film is cool because it's a complete package. You know the beginning, middle, and end. You can plan it out more, which I like. But with television you get a new script every week, so it's constantly a mystery as to what you're going to be doing. — Austin Butler

Before 1975, if you knew the name Howard Sackler it was because he was the author behind the 1969 Broadway play The Great White Hope, which won Sackler the Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle award as the year's Best Play as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A friend of film producer David Brown, Sackler accepted the offer to do a re-write on Jaws author Peter Benchley's script for the film version of his novel. Sackler's main contribution to the story was the back story that the shark fisherman, Quint, derived his hatred for sharks from having survived the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in July of 1945 (in the film, Quint errantly states the date as "June the 29th, 1945"). — Louis R. Pisano

I would consider doing any part as long as the script is good and the film has an interesting director. — Daniel Radcliffe

The short film project I just finished for W Hotels and Intel, I didn't have my script finished until a few days before we began filming. We edited it very quickly and now it's up online. It was great to conceive an idea and have it premiere just a few weeks later, compared to a feature, which takes a year or more. — Roman Coppola

If there is a book that the script came from you have to read it, you have to see what you can get out of it: mood, back story and things that may not even be in the film. They kick off your imagination and broaden the character, I think. — Miranda Otto

I would love to direct a western. I love taking photographs and I'm always fascinated with angles. Also, my father was a film editor, and I have a talent for thinking of things that aren't always in a script. — Johnny Crawford

The Los Angeles Citizen-News (5/29/58) concurred, but felt the picture had more serious problems in the story department: Unfortunately, the story, as adapted for the screen comes off less praiseworthy, for most of the time the picture is not a little confusing. The story line is not easy to follow. ... Vertigo is technically a topnotch film. Storywise, little can be said. Hitchcock does as well as he can, considering the script, in a directorial capacity. Vertigo is not his best picture. — Dan Auiler

I had the luxury of working on the script with Andrew [Dominik] for a good year before the film started, so I was already intimate with the story [of The Assassination of Jesse James] and felt quite prepared walking into it. — Brad Pitt

You live for those really great scenes where you almost feel that the film has gone beyond what was printed on the script pages and been raised to another level. — Tobey Maguire

It's never a script that makes me decide to accept a film or not. — Jean-Louis Trintignant

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. — Lucy Fry

You can start a documentary with just a camera, as opposed to a fiction film where you need actors, a crew, a script, a lot more start-up resources. It may be self-perpetuating. — Thom Powers

Remember this: a simple pen is much more swift and much more precise than a camera. That's my advice to both beginning and experienced authors: don't write with a camera. A camera is slow. All these modern writers usually make the same mistake - they write books with a film in mind. When you read their works, you don't hear the voice of a real author, you hear that horribly cheesy Hollywood voice-over. Frankly, that's not a novel, it's a movie script. If you write books, use a pen. A pen is swift, it has tempo, you can kill people with it. You cannot kill people with a camera, you can only perhaps bore them to death with it. — Martijn Benders

I'm not Akira Kurosawa. He used to write ... He used to write a completely new spec script over a couple of nights. I'm not like that. It takes me a long time to put a film together that I want to make. — Duncan Jones

What has always been at the heart of film making was the value of a script. It was really the writer who could make or break a film. But as we all know, the writer has always been at the bottom of the creative heap. — Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

I had never really done something that was more of a horror film, and its funny, because those are the kind of movies that I like probably more than any other genre. The script had images in it that I liked. — Tim Burton

A film is a living thing. The screenplay is a guideline. You really need to have a good, sound script to know that you have a dramatic structure that's going to work thematically, and to know how one scene will got through another, and to get a sense of character. — Jose Padilha

I don't ever like to feel myself in the position to demand of an actor that they trust I'm going to do something worthwhile. I feel a responsibility to articulate what it is I'm going to do. Whether that's showing them a full script or sitting down with them and describing my ideas in detail. It's a very healthy burden on me as a film director to be able to articulate what I want to do, to inspire actors, rather than just saying, take it on trust I'll be able to do something worthwhile. — Christopher Nolan

If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you're turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book. — Clive Owen

I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make ... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen. — Tobias Lindholm

I think the first thing I consider is whether I like the script. Once that is done, the next thing I look for is my part in the movie. Many a times you come across good offers, but the part they are offering might not be challenging. So, I don't take up that film. — Rani Mukerji

TV has gotten perhaps better than your average film script, but at the same time, it's fun to give it all you've got for a few months and produce a story. — Michiel Huisman

Well, what we do is we have a script, of course. But for us, writing is also like storyboarding. It's drawing. And so we will cut all of those drawings together with music, sound effects and dialogue. And we screen this kind of stick-figure version of the film. — Pete Docter

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. — Michael Sheen

I want to have a great director, and also a great producer and co-stars. And there should be a tight script. After all, regardless of how the film turns out, I must have fun doing the film! — Kajol

In the 90's action pictures were all the rage. As a woman, I was fed up with them and I initially thought that the script was just another action film dressed up as a period piece. — Madeleine Stowe

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue. — David Mamet

If you just read Joseph Campbell, who has written amazing books on mythology and religion, they all do come together at some point. There are some of the greatest stories that there have ever been in the Bible. All you have to do is read the book of Maccabi, it's like a film script. — Mel Gibson

I was a big fan of Joe's film, Narc, so when you hear there's a script coming over from Joe Carnahan, you know it's going to be interesting because he has such a fresh voice. — Andy Garcia

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can't possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this. — Akira Kurosawa

To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script. — Alfred Hitchcock

Writing a screen play: One page of an average screen play equals about one minute of screen time. Therefore, the script for a typical feature film should be about 100 pages long. In fact, many studios and producers won't look at screen plays that are much longer. — John Griesemer

There are three things that are important for a film. Number one is story, number two is story, number three is story. Good actors can save a bad script and make it bearable, but good actors can't make a bad script good - they can just make it bearable. — Mark Strickson

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script. — Alexander Payne

I didn't realize that, in doing a documentary, there is this process of discovery. It's not like a film or a play with a set script. It sort of reveals itself. — William Shatner

Some people say that they read the first 20 pages, and then decide if they want to do the film or not. But, I have to read the entire thing 'cause anything can change in a script. — Liana Liberato

Life is like a B-picture script. It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down. — Kirk Douglas

I didn't even think about it when I read the script and then shooting their movie and someone was like "boy, press is going to be fun". And I didn't really know what they were talking about because to me it's just a film shows it as an extremely viable option which is obviously the most important thing for young individuals. — Ellen Page

A film can be big or small - I have to just fall in love with it. To connect with the character, the script, and the director. Sometimes they say to you, 'You should do that for your career; it's a big thing, people will go and see it,' but I wouldn't be able to, because my heart wouldn't be in it. I would drive people quite mad. — Eva Green

I'm so touched that complete strangers will send me a script asking me to be in their film. That still amazes me - and sometimes for a lot of money too. — Liam Neeson

If it were all in the script, why make the film? — Nicholas Ray

Whether it's a lower or higher budget project, a TV show or a film, the words on the page are the same to me and I approach the work in the same way. My job is to lift the character from the page, whether it's a TV or film script. — Michael Eklund

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude - for every single moment of my stupid, little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure; but don't worry ... .you will someday. — Alan Ball

I almost always do things that I like, in some form or fashion. Every once in awhile that means that I don't think the script is any good and I don't have any trust in the people, but the film is shooting in Sri Lanka, or somewhere like that, so I'm going. — Billy Campbell

Well,the fun part of being a writer is that it's like making a wonderful film, with no limit on my budget. I can design the sets, the costume, the lightings, I write the script, and then I get to perform all the roles as I step into each character's skin, zip up, and adopt that point of view. So, to me, they are all compelling and fascinating. — Robin Hobb

When James Cameron brought me the script, which I developed with both Cameron and Jay Cocks, I wanted to make it a thriller, an action film, but with a conscience, and I found that it had elements of social realism. — Kathryn Bigelow

I wrote the plot [for the Persepolis ]and Vincent [Paronnaud] and I wrote and discussed the shooting of the script. Vincent then took care of the production design, the actual shooting, and what was going on within each scene. It's very difficult, though, to draw a line between who did what. Because Vincent would say something, and I would add something, and at the end you have this film, yet no clear idea of who did what. — Marjane Satrapi

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. — William Boyd

In a way, we tried to make 'The Salvation' a contemporary film with contemporary emotions. At the same time, in the script, you get a feel that all the small talk is not a part of our universe. It's more precise talk. — Mads Mikkelsen

It slightly depends on your perspective, sort of how you look at these things, but when I sit down to write a script, I'm not planning to write a script; I'm planning to make a film, and so I only see the script as being just a step there. — Alex Garland

A film is different than a script. The text of the script is what it is. — John Curran

It was Ernie Haller, who had photographed Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, who was solely responsible for the visuals in Mildred Pierce, said Crawford. "Ernie was at the rehearsals. And so was Mr. [Anton] de Grot, who did the sets. I recall seeing Ernie's copy of the script and it was filled with notations and diagrams. I asked him if these were for special lights and he said, 'No, they're for special shadows.' Now, that threw me. I was a little apprehensive. I was used to the look of Metro, where everything, including the war pictures, was filmed in blazing white lights. Even if a person was dying there was no darkness. But when I saw the rushes of Mildred Pierce I realized what Ernie was doing. The shadows and half-lights, the way the sets were lit, together with the unusual angles of the camera, added considerably to the psychology of my character and to the mood and psychology of the film. And that, my dear, is film noir." "Mildred — Shaun Considine

The thing is when you play a character it's the persona you bring across from a book to film, or book to script to film. If I play Frank Sinatra, there's gonna be things I do in a movie that Frank might not have done, but it's the personality that comes across. — Alex Pettyfer

The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing. — Akira Kurosawa

I'd love to work in the States; I'd love to work anywhere where you get a good script and a good part to play. But I do love British film as well. — Laura Carmichael

There's a film I did called 'Front of the Class', about a teacher who had Tourette's. That was a beautiful blend of drama and comedy. There's some great moments of levity in the script. — James Wolk

You can have a great character in a really bad script, and the film will never be seen. It's just too much work to commit to a film and not have it released. — Devin Ratray

I feel very blessed in my career to have been able to bounce back and forth between different things, television and film, comedies and some dramas, but I am, um, as long as the script inspires me and there good people, that's it. I'm in. — Geoff Stults

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

The role and the script are not the only factor to chose or do a film, but the names associated with the project also matters. — Tena Desae

Whenever I'm doing any film, there's always three different things. There's the script, which is really just a blueprint. And then, you shoot the movie and it's an entirely different experience than you would expect from reading the script. And then, there's the whole post process and the editing, and it becomes something else entirely. — Thomas Ian Nicholas

I have thus decided to make a certain film and now begins the complicated and difficult-to-master work. To transfer rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions, sequences, tones and scents into words and sentences in a readable or at least understandable script. This is difficult but not impossible. — Ingmar Bergman

I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting. — Jim Jarmusch

I think it's the same thing for a country. We are lucky then that we can get some financing from the government, because it means when I get the money, when I get the grant to do the film, of course it's based on the script, but I have total artistic control and I can do personal stuff. — Philippe Falardeau

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. — Charlie Hunnam

[Constance Bennett] never tired of acting, said Peter Plant. She liked it, she enjoyed it, and she worked very hard at it. When she was making a film, she would really be busy preparing for the next day's scenes. I would visit her for half an hour, and then she would go back to her script. She had what her father had, a photographic memory. Richard Bennett, I understand, could read a play through once, and he knew the whole play, and everyone else's cues. I have the good fortune to have inherited that, and it's made many people think me more intelligent than I am. — Eve Golden

It's much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script. — Michael Caine

You tend to get a script and you push it toward being the kind of film you want to make. — Peter Webber

Each film is different. Time Code was very quick - a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick - 16 days. — Mike Figgis

American television is very much created by the writers, just the volume of it. The writers are so key. You're just trying to do something that serves that script. And in general, film isn't all about the script, really. — Richard Ayoade

It feels very, very good to make a film freely, to work without having to wait years for script approval, without looking over your shoulder. — Bahman Ghobadi

We translated the script together with them. And during the process of translation, they rewrote the scripts. They put a lot into it. They made it their own. There are names of plants or chants or certain rites and everything that you cannot come across it in a movie. You know, you cannot learn about them casually. So the film doesn't have value in the ethnographical, anthropological. It's fiction. — Ciro Guerra

I decided to give acting a serious, committed try, and soon after, I read the script for 'Lovely and Amazing.' The story was beautiful and honest, and the characters struggled with the same insecurities many women - including me - face. I didn't think I had a chance in hell of being in the film, but I knew I had to go for it. — Emily Mortimer

Usually the script is much more funny than the film turns out to be, in my case. The script is almost like a comic book but when you start making it, for some reason the film gets very serious. — Dagur Kari

So, as opposed to getting people in to read the script and read scenes with me, what I wanted to do was sit down and chat to these people and just say, "Okay. Do you share my sense of humor? Do you understand what this film is getting at? Do you know the tone that we're trying to get to?" And it was interesting. — Dan Mazer

When my film went to the Venice Film Festival and won the best script writing, the jury [prize], it didn't go to my head. I know how many black filmmakers that I am operating with whose name will never be mentioned. But I'm part of them in that silent existence. — Haile Gerima

I'd like to have the script in a much better place from day one of shooting, rather than trying to continue to work on it while you shoot it. I think those are lessons you learn on any film. — Joseph Kosinski

No matter how great the script, the actual film will only be a distant relative of it - it will never be an identical twin. — Peter Straughan