Dirk Benedict Quotes

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

The more I read scripts, the more I learn about scripts, basically.

I'm kind of down for anything, as long as it's an amazing script that speaks to me, so I'm just constantly reading and constantly looking.

I just want to work on good scripts.

I started as a playwright. Any sort of scriptwriting you do helps you hone your story. You have the same demands of creating a plot, developing relatable characters and keeping your audience invested in your story. My books are basically structured like three-act plays.

When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.

Ensure that your script is watertight. If it's not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen.

Writing a screenplay is like writing a big puzzle, and so the hardest part, I think, is getting the story.

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

I love writing for the screen.

If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you're asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.

'The Full Monty' was my first feature script, and I wasn't that skilled at it.

I wish I could remember how to write a play. I can't remember how they happened.

It was really fun to start writing movies because you could actually take characters whose voice you enjoy writing in and have actual things happen to them for more than five minutes. It was really fun to thread it together.

Whenever you write script without a director, you put in things that point toward a style in which the story will be told, a subjective style.

One of the horribly frustrating things about writing feature films is the rules everyone applies and says, 'You have to do this by the end of the first act and by the end of the second act you must introduce this.' As if there were rules to life or telling a story or the ways things happen, which of course there aren't.

It always comes down to script and characters.

I definitely have the screenwriting itch.

A good script can come from anywhere.

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

Writing a TV show is totally different than writing features, or just, what I started doing is writing features. You write a little bit more organically. You start from the beginning to the end, beginning, middle and end.

Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film.

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.