Mark Strong Quotes

I got sent the script [ Before I Go To Sleep] as usually happens and you have a little look. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but it was absolutely a page turner. I mean, I wanted to find out what happened next.

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

You can have an amazing director and terrible script, and the film's not going to be great. But if you have the most incredible script and an okay director, you could still get a really good film.

What you do is get the right director and the right screenwriter and the right cast. It's a fantastic job.

Consistency is very important when you're making films.

There are no great scripts - just great films.

Today, everything has to be made by committee, and has to have special effects, but there's always room for good films.

I'm not looking for a challenge, necessarily. I'm looking to make a really great film.

There's some good films, there's some films that could be improved. So we keep trying until we get it right. That's the nature of storytelling, whether it's on paper or on film.

For me, it's important that the script is good. Then a good director will want to make it.

If the script is not good, the film will not work.

I know 'Dabangg' has some pre-requisites. Every film has some requisites that you have to fulfill. I sat down with my writer and discussed what as an audience I want to see in the second part of the film. We worked towards that and we hope what we thought connects with the audience.

I must admit, strong films are more interesting to me, as, by the end of the day's shooting, you feel good.

With good content, a solid director can make a film without a superstar.

Whenever I work on a film, I have three rules. Only three and I tell them to every screenwriter. I say let's retain the spirit and the intent of the overall story. Let's make it the best film that we possibly can.

There is no such thing as a good script, onlya good film, and I'm conscious that my scripts often read better than they play.

I have never seen a film being as influenced by the incidents during its making as Highway. The adventures of our north Indian road journey has many stories to tell.

Well, there's two things I have criteria for doing a film: The script, which is the story, and the filmmaker, and it's a filmmaker's medium. I like really strong directors, and so when I do a film, I'm out there to serve the director, really, which is in turn to serve the script, to serve the director cause he's the one making the film. I relied on Todd Haynes for that.

Fundamentally, the most important thing is to get the film made for me and to get as many people to see it as possible. And if I help that, then - I know I help that, let's put it that way. I do know that I help that. It is called show business.

I wrote the plot [for the Persepolis ]and Vincent [Paronnaud] and I wrote and discussed the shooting of the script. Vincent then took care of the production design, the actual shooting, and what was going on within each scene. It's very difficult, though, to draw a line between who did what. Because Vincent would say something, and I would add something, and at the end you have this film, yet no clear idea of who did what.

More often than not, if you've got a good director and a good script you can't really go wrong.

If you don't have a brilliant screenplay, then you either have amazing actors who give you the chance to improve whatever is on the page, or an interesting director who has enough faith in the project that they can carry it through and get it somewhere. One of those factors needs to happen. If not, it's sad.

There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all.

I have thus decided to make a certain film and now begins the complicated and difficult-to-master work. To transfer rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions, sequences, tones and scents into words and sentences in a readable or at least understandable script. This is difficult but not impossible.

An epic is the easiest kind of picture to make badly.