Quotes & Sayings About Scripts

What's been exciting for me is to read the scripts. — James Wolk

I get a trickling few scripts that I'm lucky enough that some of them are great. I don't get loads of scripts. — Meryl Streep

To the question of writing at all we have sometimes been counselled to forget it, or rather the writing of books. What is required, we are told, is plays and films. Books are out of date! The book is dead, long live television! One question which is not even raised let alone considered is: Who will write the drama and film scripts when the generation that can read and write has been used up? — Chinua Achebe

So, no, I'm not trying to crack into Hollywood, although I'll make films there if they're good scripts. — Ewan McGregor

I've turned down a lot of proposed scripts for Scrubs episodes, mainly ones with AIDs patients. It sickens me, really. If you don't want AIDs, don't be a ice cream man. Or African. I'm neither and I'm fine. — Zach Braff

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 have this group of friends that I'll send my scripts to before I send them to a large audience. — Maggie Carey

And when I first started writing, it was literally in acting classes. And what would happen is now it's really easy to get scripts and stuff but back then, you know, oftentimes you'd buy the novelization to a movie if you wanted to get an idea of what the scene, you know what happened in the scene. — Quentin Tarantino

You're there right through the match, thinking all the time, making it up as you go along. We don't have anybody write our scripts. You're basically presenting to the people watching at home off the top of your head. — Jill Douglas

With the film, you have a bunch of executive producers, directors, writers, scripts. There's, management, lighting, the union and etc. There are so many components a part of that game, so naturally it isn't my world. — Ashanti

'The Inbetweeners' would have been a success with a totally different cast because the scripts are good - so while we were fortunate enough to be cast in it, we feel we still have a lot to prove. — Simon Bird

The writing system at the opposite extreme took the longest to emerge: the alphabet, one symbol for one minimal sound. The alphabet is the most reductive, the most subversive of all scripts. In all the languages of earth there is only one word for alphabet (alfabet, alfabeto, ). The alphabet was invented only once. — James Gleick

The way I choose parts is I look at the scripts ... I choose a part by whether or not it challenges me. — Kellie Martin

For the last episode [of Downton Abbey], you'll need some handkerchiefs. I needed handkerchiefs reading it. It wasn't because it necessarily moved me while reading it, but it was the experience of reading it when I realized it was the last time I was ever going to be reading one of those scripts. That was quite terminal. — Hugh Bonneville

I look at scripts really for whether they can be moving or penetrate some kind of truth. You are constantly chasing that feeling as an actor when every part of a production comes together. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

I won't read scripts because I have a limited amount of time. Why should I help other people do lame stuff when I can just go out and put on lame stuff of my own? — Eric Idle

Success is freedom - scripts coming your way and getting to choose the stories you want to tell. — Rosamund Pike

I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to literature and theory. I wish I could have more of that in life, but I don't because I'm always reading scripts or things to prepare for movies when I'm reading. — Elizabeth Olsen

When I direct my own scripts, it's much easier as it's been in my head for a year already. What I love about this is having an idea and seeing it come to fruition onscreen. I would like to direct someone else's script one day, but I might not get round to it before I die - you can't legislate for being hit by a bus! — Ricky Gervais

It's one of the most beautiful scripts [Brokeback Mountain] I've ever read, and it was Ang Lee, and at the time Heath [Ledger] was a friend of mine - before we even shot the movie - and always sort of alluring to me. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Flying is my favorite time in the world. When I'm sitting in a plane, it's amazing because it's quiet and there's no cell phones and no one to talk to you. It's my favorite time. I read all my scripts. I catch up on my movies. I sleep. It's the best. There's no one telling you, "Time to go!" — Priyanka Chopra

The script and the performances and the style all clicked. — Edgar Wright

When we get involved with other people, the chances of a clash are present even with people we love because we do not have the same scripts in our heads. — Sol Stein

Piper reads the scripts, and we email a lot. Most of her comments are on the more technical side, like "This wouldn't happen. This is against the rules." She's been extremely respectful of our taking her story, and then veering left with it and taking it in its own direction. But, I always want her involved because she's the mother of all this. — Jenji Kohan

Most aspiring screenwriters simply don't spend enough time choosing their concept. It's by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months - sometimes years - are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by its nature probably had no hope of ever becoming a movie. — Terry Rossio

I've always sensed what a script should sound like - even before the movie's been made — David Puttnam

The scripts for Marco Polo are absolutely, positively fantastic. The challenge of making that show in China has proved to be as formidable as we feared. It's not like making a movie in China where, once you load up and you leave, you're gone. We have to be able to come back and capture something that's going to feel like a major feature film, on a television budget, and do it, hopefully season after season, so we are taking more time than the producers thought. — Chris Albrecht

I figured I'd probably write 50 scripts in my life. Out of those 50, I figured maybe five would be produced, and that maybe one or two would be successful. So I always kind of expected I'd write at least one successful film in my life. [ ... ] The way it all came together was kind of like Murphy's law in reverse - I don't expect that kind of experience again any time soon. — Michael Arndt

If you steal other people's characters, it doesn't work with the context of the scripts and what is written, so I wanted to make her my own. I was petrified, in the beginning, because it's such an iconic character, especially being a young lady myself. — Tamsin Egerton

In the end, whether I write the script or, in this case, somebody else did, there's a point where you let it go when you're making a movie. You just have to. The thing that you shoot is not what you imagined in your head - it never is exactly that. And it shouldn't be. — Todd Haynes

Stephen Moyer is probably the most gracious, gifted actor that I've met. He's really intelligent. He has a real sensitivity to his character, to scenes, to scripts. — Valerie Cruz

Usually, I read the script very often. I think that everything is hiding in the script. — Audrey Tautou

I'm probably working on three different scripts at any time, so there's never a time where I've got nothing to do. — Chris O'Dowd

My personal experience has been that in my 25 years of writing, I have not been asked to do more than four or five commercial one-shot scripts. These were performed on major national hook-ups but produced for me no immediate additional jobs or requests. One script for BBC was done around the world with an all-star cast. — Langston Hughes

The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny. — Hugh Grant

If you have a good script, that's what gets you involved. It's harder to write a good screenplay than to find something. — Bill Murray

the fundamentally paradoxical ways that our very subjectivities are constituted: as cultural scripts, as texts written before us as us. It is confusing being a novel, a piece of fiction that considers itself a simple fact. — Whitley Strieber

We follow our scripts like actors in a very large, very long production. And even with no audience, none of us gives a hint that it isn't real. — Ann Brashares

It's very rare to have rehearsal time on a television show: You get scripts, you show up, and you do it. — Tony Hale

When I initially read the script, it goes inside and comes out different things even without commenting on any stuff. And then, those pieces are taken out and then spread out through the movie. — A.R. Rahman

Once, I had so many scripts coming to me that I could hardly read them all. — Greta Scacchi

No matter what identity we cling to, it takes great courage to step out of the old masks we wear and the old scripts that we live by, and open ourselves to the mysterious inner core of our being. — Adyashanti

I'd like to think that I have a plan, but you can't really pick what scripts you're going to get or what movie is going to come along. — Jennifer Lawrence

I read a lot of scripts that I just don't find very funny. — Jennifer Aniston

My m.o. as far as choosing projects is I really try not to work. I try to not do the scripts that are offered me. — Jeff Bridges

After playing Saffy in 'Ab Fab', I needed to take time out from acting to see if I really wanted to do it. I had been doing it for a very long time and I was being sent the same sort of scripts again and again. — Julia Sawalha

When doing a revival, you have a lot of people asking you questions about someone who played it before, and to me that's neither here nor there - it has no bearing on the material that I have to use. The material that is written down in a score and script that the writers originally used is what I use. — Kelli O'Hara

We too often act from scripts generated by the crises of long ago that we've all but consciously forgotten. We behave according to an archaic logic which now escapes us, following a meaning we can't properly lay bare to those we depend on most. We may struggle to know which period of our lives we are really in, with whom we are truly dealing and what sort of behaviour the person before us is rightfully owed. WE can be a little tricky to be around. — Alain De Botton

When you have great scripts, everything is very easy and fun. — Demian Bichir

There hasn't been anyone with whom I can discuss my scripts. Even when the film is done, there is no one I can show it to who gives his sincere opinion. There is silence. — Ingmar Bergman

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images. — Ingmar Bergman

A lot of shows are more script-driven, like a prose script. As an actor, you never see a storyboard. — Tom Kenny

I'm always trying to work on scripts. I'm pretty selective. Sometimes maybe too much because I'm broke . — Michael Pitt

I've been blessed with some lovely scripts and a character that people could truly identify with. It's one of those surprises in life that makes you think, 'God was smiling on me that particular day. — Dwight Schultz

I write plays instinctively. I don't like writing movie scripts. — Jesse Eisenberg

I started at an agency called Intertalent. You copy scripts, you pick up people's dry cleaning, you take their dogs to the vet, you deliver packages, you do whatever they want you to do. — Patrick Whitesell

The Bible is not a script for a funeral service, but it is the record of God always bringing life where we expected to find death. Everywhere it is the story of resurrection. — Eugene H. Peterson

When I see an image in my head that compels me, where there's this mystery about what's going to happen next or could happen next, I'll be intrigued. There are so many scripts that you read, and you know exactly what's going to happen, and there aren't too many where you can't tell within the first 20 pages where it's going. — Cary Fukunaga

I'm cold in summer. I'm the coldest person ever! It's very ironic I'm never cold in the scripts. Every time I'm shooting, if you don't see a part of me, there are hot water bottles there. — Carice Van Houten

I'm definitely a messy person ... I know where everything is but I just can't organize. I don't make lists and find scripts on the laundry machine, and under my bed, or in the bathroom, kitchen. It's bad, I really need to take control. — Katie Holmes

So often, I read scripts and am like, 'This would never happen in real life. It's not trying to be funny. It's trying to be serious.' — Shailene Woodley

["Manning Up"'s] essays definitely nuance the idea of transitioning into a "shared manhood" (much like feminists of color have complicated the idea of "shared womanhood"). Trans men don't all transition to just become "men," which was one of the projects' cornerstone concepts. They become black men, white men, queer men, straight men, working class men, affluent men, fatherly men, single men, spiritual men, etc. etc. All of these mean different things when filtered through social and intimate, familial lenses.

One major boon of the growth in transgender literature ... is that we get to tease out these complexities in lives that will be popularly portrayed as monolithic unless we provide counter-scripts."

- from a National Book Critics Circle interview with writer Rigoberto Gonzalez — Mitch Kellaway

I have pictures from work that I'm sending to my family. I send them scripts that I'm working on so they can be excited and know what's up with me. — Erika Christensen

In an ideal world the script is written lean and tight and therefore there are no scenes left on the cuttring room floor and therefore no extended edition. — Peter Jackson

I love to write. I write everything across the board - kids' stories and novels and scripts. I actually would like to give that a go; I'd like to try to be a writer. — Evangeline Lilly

I try to have a balance of things you like and things you don't like about a character. But once you start that, all these scripts are like, "You play the douchebag friend of Ashton Kutcher." It's all these characters that are overconfident or hyper-masculine. — Jemaine Clement

Responsibilities are relative. My responsibility is to a character in a script, to a part I'm playing. — Al Pacino

I learned so much by being an actor, and part of my sort-of development as a writer is big thanks to the scripts I read in my acting life. — Joel Edgerton

There's no one I trust in show business more than Sabrina Wind. She's my eyes and ears when I can't be there. She weighs in on everything, from scripts to sets to advertising. — Marc Cherry

I don't know how I absorb things, but I do. I just absorb them. I don't over read the script, and I don't really ever spend much time learning it. — John Noble

I like to flip through play scripts, not just my own; there is something exciting about seeing printed language on a page that triggers responses in me. — Donald Margulies

Scripts don't get movies made. — Christopher McQuarrie

Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot ... but if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don't stand a shot. It's very rare-almost never-that a good film gets made from a bad screenplay. — Tim Bevan

A movie's very different from the book, and it's different from the script, and it's usually one person's vision. — Casey Affleck

I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet. — Tom Cruise

My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood. — Rani Mukerji

Everything is in a script for a reason, and only by being part of a writing team (or writing it yourself), do you really understand the intention of every beat. — Peter Jackson

I have been fortunate to get some really good scripts over the years and I haven't turned down anything that I regretted so far. And my manager who I've been with for over 25 years is very good at knowing what I should and shouldn't do a lot of times. — Billy Bob Thornton

Am I getting better at making choices? Well, I think I might be getting better at reading scripts. — Benicio Del Toro

Television's so quick, and there's so many other fun elements to it, but you don't get such good scripts and the time to really make much more three dimensional characters. — Lydia Leonard

I watch the TV or learn scripts while on the elliptical - need to get back on it! — Bryan Batt

And I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here, but there are a lot of terrible scripts in this town. — Frank Darabont

On Phantom ... I listened to the music while I was reading the script. And it had just blown me away. I really ... I was so excited about it. It's been a long time since I really got so excited about something. — Gerard Butler

I'm working in a form of cinema that can be described, and has been described, as a diaristic form of cinema. In other words, with material from my own life. I walk through life with my camera, and occasionally I film. I never think about scripts, never think about films, making films. — Jonas Mekas

When I write my scripts, there's a point at which if I'm not starting to see them visually, I feel like I'm kind of cheating. So my scripts are laden with a lot of visual description, which makes them not so much fun to read - I kind of weigh them down. — Todd Haynes

The strength of the script, for me, was that you're really left, right till the end, to know what's happening. This seemingly perfect, happy, kooky real relationship slowly turns into something horrifying, but you get there through a filter of reality with all of it. — Harry Treadaway

I do well to interpret scripts to the best of my ability so even if I'm given a monster to play a love scene with, I will. — Majid Michel

Most of the time I've worked with directors who write their own scripts. The story is more important to me than the part. The project of the film has always been more important to me. — Catherine Deneuve

I barely read. I'm not a good reader at all. Rather than reading, I used to sit in front of the TV and watch black-and-white cowboy movies. I'm a painfully slow reader. It's really bad as an actor, because you have to read a lot of scripts. It takes me like an average of three hours to read a script, which is pretty poor. — Will Poulter

I don't know if I'm always going to be acting. Maybe when I grow up, I will be a scriptwriter. I already have a few scripts in my head. — Mara Wilson

I really respond to human scripts, scripts that are raw and real and risky. I love playing scary characters - not horror film scary, but vulnerable scary. — Shailene Woodley

I hate when I get a script and I can't see who the people are. — Anne Fletcher

It's nice to finally get scripts offered to me that aren't the ones Tom Hanks wipes his butt with. — Jim Carrey

I don't know, just scripts randomly appeal to me. I'm not looking specifically at any genre. — Robert Pattinson

The Lord Chamberlin was censoring scripts when I first came into the theater. — Judi Dench

The only thing that gets me back to directing is good scripts. — Steven Spielberg

I like dialogue that is slightly more brittle than life. I have always admired and wished to write one of those 1940s film scripts where every line is written with a sharpness and economy that is frankly artificial. — Tom Stoppard

I'm always attracted to bold, risk-taking scripts. — Aidan Gillen

I have spent much of my life turning away from the scripts given to me, in China and in America; my refusal to be defined by the will of others is my one and only political statement. — Yiyun Li

Movies are not scripts - movies are films; they're not books, they're not the theatre. — Nicolas Roeg