Peter Landesman Quotes

Since I was a child, I've liked telling stories. Maybe because my father's a director, I grew up loving stories. I'm not good at spinning them at a dinner table because I do go on a bit, but I love writing them, and directing is just a way of editing the story.

I'm a journalist, and I'm a filmmaker. I have an organization that's all about telling stories.

What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.

At the end of the day, filmmaking is all about telling stories, and I'm just doing my part.

I think I might want to get into development, as in developing my own sort of piece, whether it be for the stage or the big screen or for television.

You can be far more challenging, articulate and intelligent writing for television than you can writing for the cinema.

Writing fiction is the 'job' I try to keep at the center of things. The movie stuff has been a wonderful accident, though not entirely bizarre, either, as I have done some work in film before, and even directed a ridiculous, cable-access feature back in my 20s.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

I went to journalism school, so sometimes writing the script of 'Being Mary Jane' is me putting my journalism hat on.

Writing a screenplay is so spare, it kind of reminded me that I really should celebrate what I can do in a book, which is description: for example, places, people, locations.

There's a heresy which is perpetuated by film school that to be a great director you have to write your own stuff.

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

I've always known that I've wanted to write, but I always saw myself doing that in the context of something other than film, so it was a really beautiful and kind of perfect moment in my life when I realized that I could combine this idea of wanting to write and tell my own stories with the environment I had grown up in and knew well - that I could make film as opposed to writing being a departure from what I knew.

I love making movies, I love the differentness of it, I love writing. But I've always liked television. I grew up on television.

Hollywood has its own way of telling stories. I was just telling stories that I was familiar with. And it's what I want to do in the future: I want to take my audio cinema and put it on the screen.

I started acting when I was really young. I knew I wanted to be in the industry in other ways. I knew that I wanted to do more than just act. I don't know that I knew it was screenwriting, but I just knew that I wanted to be involved.

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.

I was attracted to filmmaking in college because of my love of storytelling. You can have such an impact and reach a broader audience than conventional journalism.

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

For me, I see filmmaking as art.

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.