Carlton Cuse Quotes

It's not writing in the traditional sense, but I've always said that the writing process continues on the set and even into the editing room.

In writing scripts now, having made a film, I'm much more conscious of what it means to shoot and edit a movie, and that affects the writing.

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

I haven't thought about getting into production. I'm interested in the creative aspect of storytelling.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

I love writing. I think writing and directing go hand in hand.

Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.

I want to write a film. I need to think of the right idea and focus on that; I love writing.

I don't write on set. I also - in a funny way, I don't really differentiate between the writing and directing. I think it's all sort of the same thing.

First and foremost, it's got to be on the page. It starts with the writing.

I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.

I start each of my scripts by going on a journey of painstaking research and discovery, much as I do a piece of long-lead journalism.

The movies sort of tell you what they want to be as you're writing them.

Writing a script consumes so much of time.

On the whole, stories don't write themselves.

I enjoy storytelling. I like to write it, I like to direct it, I like to act in it, I like to produce it. I like to be around storytellers. That's what excites me.

I enjoy writing scripts. I can find out what happens. With an outline, I feel like I'm doing an architectural diagram of something.

You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.

I can certainly be surprised by turns a story takes, but usually not once I'm actually in the writing/drawing stage. In the plotting stage, anything can happen. That's why I try to finish that part before I start writing. I may be exaggerating here - I'm sure there are times when I think of something part-way through that changes the story, but the ultimate outcome doesn't change. Or not yet. It could always happen.

I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage.

Once you start working with a particular actor, that actor becomes very present in your mind as your mind as you're writing subsequent episodes.

When I want to tackle a story or a subject, I always ask myself three questions: Is it important to talk about that? Will it interest other people than just me? Can I live with that for three or four years because that's how long it takes to do the project, to write the script, and to direct it, and then to do this.

With everything I've done from "Jackie Brown" on, I got really into really writing more prose in the - in what you're calling the stage directions, all right, and consequently my scripts have gotten bigger and bigger, and cut to "Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2."

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.

When I'm writing, I don't put faces on the characters. When I finish the first draft of the script, I start visualizing, and sometimes then I think about one actor.