Quotes About Screenplay

I always feel like a script is a recipe, and then you bring the elements into the recipe, and you cook with it.

Writing with a film in mind - writing like a screenplay - is a sureshot recipe for disaster.

If you get a book which is 600 pages, you have to reduce it to a script of 100 pages. In two hours of film, you cannot possibly include all the characters.

Anybody can write a film script 'cuz it has been reduced to a formula.

'Nuvvla Nenila' is an out and out love entertainer. The screenplay of the film is very good and director Nakkina Trinadha Rao has handled the film superbly.

That freedom of writing you don't get in other formats, I'd rather leave it to someone else to deal with the headache of drafting my book into a screenplay.

I love film and have taken a stab at a screenplay. I love writing dialogue and found it highly enjoyable.

The movie producer and all-around mensch Stuart Cornfeld once told me that in a good screenplay, every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way.

For me, when working on a film or play or television show, everything for me starts with the screenplay and I am devoted to that and that is what I work from. Any research I do or any preparation I do on my own is all ultimately in service of that.

I'm working on a screenplay, one where God appears with a bag of golf clubs in the apartment of a successful New York public relations executive and says that he wants to kill himself because He's always been a lousy god and He thinks everybody will be better off without Him.

A horrible script 99 percent of the time means a horrible movie. But if you start with a good script, odds are you're going to have a good movie.

In 'Burrraah,' I play a teacher whose aim is to reform a bunch of rowdy boys. My character is very interesting and I chose this film for a Punjabi debut because of its story, script, screenplay and director, Sagar Sharma. I love the way he narrates a story.

Writing a screenplay needs to be more than words on a page - and by the way, I think the words on the page are something you have to try to execute on the highest level you can; I'm not dismissing that by any regard.

The screenplay has to be gripping. That's when the film will work. Then, I see how much I can relate to the character I'm playing.

When I started writing the screenplay for 'The Queen,' about the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana, both Stephen Frears, the director, and Andy Harries, the producer, begged me not to put Tony Blair in it.

Acting is fun and I refuse to get involved in the semantics and the politics of strategy and breaking out of something or doing something because you need to do something else. For me it's all about what fuels my soul and if I'm passionate about a screenplay then that's what I'll do next.

I'm a very slow screenwriter. It takes time for me to write a screenplay. Also, I feel it's not my strength.

Did not go well at mall. Passerby said, "how's the screenplay goin', Steve?" Worried about tomorrow's performance on CSI… and Emmy.

How's the uh..uh..(look at palm) SCREENPLAY going… uh..uh..(racking brain) LESLIE NIELSEN." Yipes. Or:

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.

I remember when I read the screenplay for 'Sicario,' I fell in love with it, but at the same time, I went, 'Oh no, not again.' I mean, I would love to fall in love with something that is more light, like a rom-com or a comedy. I would love to. Because it's very demanding to go to dark places like this.

When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.

I recently found out that the print of my first film 'Utrada Rathri,' released in 1978, is damaged beyond repair. So the only way to relive earlier films is through books based on the screenplay.

The simple idiot's advice I give to screenwriters who say they want to sell a screenplay is, 'Write good.'