Samuel L. Jackson Quotes

I take time to write my script, if I have more scripts, I will make more movies.

Every movie I've ever made has just kind of come together.

In the U.S., it's like, you start with a great script, and then on set - not everybody, but definitely in the Apatow group - you go off, and you're improvising on camera. So while you're on camera, you're saying things that no one else has ever heard before during the actual take.

Every movie is like a little company, and any little thing can make it not work.

I always write these movies that are far too big for any paying customer to sit down and watch from beginning to end, and so I always have this big novel that I have to adapt into a movie as I go.

I originally went to school to be a filmmaker. And so it's a big part of how I think and how I write. And it inspires me a lot.

You have to pace yourself. As a producer, you start with a concept and shepherd it through the script to the delivery of the film. It's a very long journey for an hour and 40 minutes of movie.

If you create a fun environment, people will take liberties and grow and expand. And then you'll get your final screenplay in my favorite style, which is 'tossed away' - as if the actor just thought of it.

It's really hard to sell a script, and it's even harder to get a movie made. It just almost never happens.

It was very amusing to do 'GI Joe: Retaliation' scenes with Bruce Willis, who spends months rewriting his dialogue and then turns up and doesn't say it. Part of the time, he doesn't say anything, but mumbles and mutters.

There is a variety of different kind of producers. I'm a very hands-on, creative producer. I find material that I think would make a good movie or TV show, find the right financier/studio/network, hire a writer, get a good script, find a director, and collaborate with him/her to cast the movie and hire department heads.

If I can't finish a screenplay, if I can't get to the last page as a writer, it probably means it's not a good movie for me to make.

I think people really don't understand what a producer does versus what a director does. I mean, the producer is often the person that is on the movie the longest - it's their material that they are then bringing the director onto to bring it to the screen. Are we overlooked? Absolutely.

I wrote 'Mud' for Matthew McConaughey and had never met him.

Usually when I write a movie, I'm lucky if I get one good actress.

When I started acting, I did many films without even an idea of what the script was about. The film would start, and then we would discover what we were expected to do on the sets. Those days have changed.

It's fairly common to get something optioned but really rare to actually see it become a movie.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble.

I'd like to be making more films more frequently, but I do find that making movies, for me, has proven to be an extremely challenging road. No movie is easy; no movie has come together quickly.

So, yes, I wrote a script called 'Ben Is Back' that I got to make with a bunch of remarkable artists and craftspeople.

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

Though I have an idea about the climax, it always changes when we start shooting.

Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.

You always have three movies that you have to reduce into one. You have the screenplay. And then, you do a workshop and you add more scenes. And then, on the day you shoot, there's more action and interaction. It's like a souffle. It has a tendency to just grow and explode, and it's just too long.

When you're making a movie, you feel like a very small part of something that you really don't have much influence upon. You roll in, you do your thing, and then you're gone.