Quotes from Craig Zadan

We'd never do 'The Sound of Music' because the movie was perfect.

If anything's going to go wrong, it'd go wrong during 'Peter Pan,' not 'The Sound of Music.'

We've spoken to a lot of friends who are stars who could be great, and they say to us, 'Look, if you were doing a movie musical, and we could pre-record and lip-synch, sure. But live? So if we hit a bad note it's there for posterity? We're not going to go out there without a safety net.' People are scared to death of that.

It rests in the hands of 'Dreamgirls' and 'Hairspray.' If they're successful, we'll be back on track - people will continue to greenlight musicals. If they don't work, then you're going to see everyone go back to the way it was before 'Chicago.'

We're finding that the casting of 'A Few Good Men' is different from the musicals because the kind of actors that you need to do it are movie actors, basically.

It's expensive to produce musicals on television.

I think maybe the most important thing that we have to say is that people don't often talk about network executives being brave. You don't talk about them as having integrity and a higher purpose, because it's a job... except for Bob Greenblatt. He is a theatre person. He loves and understands it.

Neil and I had the greatest experience of our lives doing 'Chicago' with Latifah. Then we had the second best experience of our lives doing 'Hairspray.'

Basically, we had the idea of doing this production of 'Steel Magnolias,' and we spoke to Queen Latifah about it, and she got excited.

We wanted to take on social and political and LGBTQ stories which no one at the upper level of the entertainment industry ever really wants to do. So you have to fight, and you have to persuade, and you have to manipulate the studios and the networks. And you have to go back - over and over again - until they say yes.

To battle the odds - loss of interest, no funding, discouragement - requires someone who doesn't give up.

Neil and I share a desire for great quality in our work. If we are offered projects, look at projects, or consider projects that don't have that quality, then we don't do them.

There were no TV musicals until we did Bette Midler 'Gypsy,' and the success of that opened the door for us to do the rest.

What usually happens on the Oscar telecast is that as soon as best picture is announced, everyone is up out of their seats and running off to their parties.

It was very, very difficult to be a student in the drama department and also review my professors' school shows. I got a lot of pressure from them to quit the paper and concentrate on studying dramatic literature.

In the past, once a movie musical was made, it was believed that you were left with that version, good or bad, for posterity.

I don't think we're going to break the law in terms of what you can or can't do on TV. We're looking to do something edgy, different, and special.