Stephen Karam Quotes

I call it an ensemble cast or the world of 'Gulabo Sitabo' which is about the lifestyle of my characters. I just go and sit there in a corner and observe these characters through my camera. That's how I shot the film.

Adapting a book is the most difficult thing because half the time you are wondering what to remove.

I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.

Hope E. L .James doesn't think I'm being a prankster. I really want to adapt her novels for the screen. Christian Grey is a writer's dream.

I read the script for Wonder Boys, and I said that was almost perfect, it was so classy, cool and funny. It's a really specific thing. We stuck to it, it turned out good and a lot of people liked it.

The fundamental difficulty that most novelists face when they are trying to adapt their own book into a screenplay is realizing that a screenplay is a completely different way of storytelling, and it has limitations.

Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.

Once you see the entertainment world from both sides, you really get a greater understanding of how it all operates. As an actor going into screenwriting, I was able to understand what type of dialogue feels natural and what an actor could actually say.

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done.

What's going to be hard for me is to try to divorce myself as much as possible from what I wrote. I'll have to approach it simply as raw material and try to craft a film script out of it.

A director shouldn't get in the way of the movie, the story should.

'Unforgiven' is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, 'This is great, but I'd like to do this when I'm older.' So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

I wrote the screenplay for 'This Is Where I Leave You' - all 40 drafts of it.

I try to picture my books being acted out.

My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor.

I was halfway through a rough draft of 'The Sisters Brothers' when it came time to start the 'Terri' adaptation.

I love Chekhov. I could go on all day about him.

The core to what makes Fincher really interesting - all the technique and all that, that is not in the center even if it's a big big part - what is in the center is the characters, and he really is interested in that.

There's a play that Chekhov wrote called 'Uncle Vanya,' and I when I was in school, I played Sonya, and sometimes people ask me if there was ever a role I could play again, that's definitely the role I would play again: Sonya in 'Uncle Vanya.'

Good directing is good writing and good casting.

I finished 'Hell or High Water' and started writing 'Wind River' literally the next day.

When you are working on a movie, you have to ensure that the journey of characters ends in two hours.

When you're writing for a movie, you're trying to capture the emotion of a scene. I find it a fascinating process.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.