John Patrick Shanley Quotes

I would consider directing. I think directing myself would be tough, but I'm definitely interested in directing. I might start off directing a play before I move to a film.

I think it's counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well-thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from.

John Cassavetes wrote A Woman Under the Influence as a play. He said, "Hey, I wrote you a play." And I said, "Great, let's read it." I read it and I said, "John, I couldn't do this every night and twice on Wednesday and Saturday".

I spent a long time working in the movies to figure out that kind of acting and also how to write and produce for the screen.

I allowed the scriptwriter to come to my parties for research and it's a good thing he did otherwise I don't think Personal Services would've been so good.

I learned more doing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' than I did during three years at drama school.

In films you do a scene, you play around with it and unless you're doing a lot of reshooting, which no one has the luxury to do, you deal with the problem for a day and then you move on. On some level, it never allows you to go very deep into what performing is about.

Stage is the ultimate test; I like watching established screen actors on stage to see if they can really do it. But it's great to have a healthy mixture of the two. Film is so technical: there's something very particular about the relationship between you and the camera. It took a long time for me to get good on film.

I love the entire process of being on the set and being able to create a character. It's so much fun. In 'Think Like a Man,' I have a very small part. They told me it wasn't a big budget, but I don't care about any of that. I'll do it for free simply because I love being on the set with other creative people.

Every role is challenging in its own way, but the most challenging roles are the ones that are badly written - then it's completely up to you to come up with something that is interesting to the story and myself as an actor.

A lot of books, if you take them at face value, they're just not gonna work as films.

When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can.

On a very small scale, I kind of understand why the directors that I work with do certain things. I don't consider myself an incredible director. I'm not ready to do movies by any means. But, I feel like I can be a better actress now that I've been on the other side and kind of understand the process and more of the technical aspects of it.

You work on a play or movie, you have the whole script, so you're constructing a performance based on the bible that you have. In TV, you don't, so to actually invest in that and let that be the exciting part is terrifying and certainly leaves room for mistakes, looking back.

I never dreamed that shooting a film would be so hard. There was less regulation then of child actors' hours. Even the concept of acting confused me.

I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn't know what they want. And that can be really, really frustrating.

'Donnie Darko' was my first audition ever! It opened my eyes to the possibilities within camera work.

For an actor working in television or film, I think it's important to understand how the medium works - how the camera and lenses work and how the sound and the editing works.

In reading plays, however, it should always be remembered that any play, however great, loses much when not seen in action.

I started out my career as a screenwriter and quickly discovered that adhering to a script isn't always the best way to make a film. You have to take into consideration the nuances of the characters and what the actors bring to their roles.

When you're doing a legitimate play, if you have a company of 12, it's considered a big cast.

Shooting a film with seven to eight actors together is complicated sometimes because you have to cover everybody.

In many ways, playing a real person is slightly easier because you have a road map. When you're playing someone fictitious, there's myriad ways in. With a real person, there's boundaries, and that sometimes makes the work easier.

I've been in a few films that have been adapted and, as an actor, the amount of resources and things you can gain just from reading the story, as well as the script, are so massive that it's something you just can't put down.

There are many great writers out there and, actually, great scripts. The problem is - and this is what I've always felt, even when I got out of school and started reading scripts - the really smart, character-driven stuff tends to be smaller films, and they just don't get made.