Matthew Weiner Quotes

TV is the place for writers to live. This is where you have creative control and you're constantly writing. 'Twilight' had almost a TV schedule to it. I was constantly working on these projects. There was not a whole lot of lull but I've gone onto other feature projects that's like, 'Okay, I'll get back to you on notes.'

The truth is, we were sick of, every time we finished a movie, having to start all over again from nothing, going to a studio, pitching an idea, setting up a new office.

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

Film is a collaborative process, absolutely, but I am a control freak.

I'm very involved in the writing on every level.

Well, we are not doing that film actually. At least I am not at the moment, but we are making an effort to get it done; I don't know whether we'll get the financing for it. The old story we had it, it fell out of place and this and that.

When you're a screenwriter working on a film, you're not really even welcome on set, even if you know... When I wrote 'Elizabeth' and Shekhar Kapur was a friend of mine, but I wasn't really welcome on set, because the director is God and it's a very difficult position for a screenwriter who's put so much passion into that, into the writing.

I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking.

By the time we got to MGM, and Lions Gate the movie was done there was nothing else to say. It was done. Just as at Universal, it was art by committee.

I've always noticed a difference between working with a director and working with a writer/director. In how much they're invested and how specific they are.

It's much like writing a screenplay with someone else and that's how we view it, I think.

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

I've definitely become more aware and conscious of what directors I'm working with because it's so important. The director is really more than half the battle of the film. You really rely on that. That's become really, really important to me, for sure.

A film goes through so many hands, that by the time it's done, it might not resemble what you thought you were making.

When you're lucky enough to get paid a nice chunk of change to write a movie or a TV show, you have no right to complain, really. I guess it's more of an appeal to the powers that be that the less they interfere, the more likely, actually, they are to get something that works, I think.

As a producer, I learned not to declare anything about a movie I'm not directing.

When you write and direct your own film, you basically know exactly what you want. Or you hope to. For the studio, it actually can make life a little easier, because if you have a bunch of questions, they only need to call one person.

My approach to working in movies is to empower the director to have power over me and to really support his vision because he's the guy, at the end of the day, who's going to put it all together.

I think film and television - particularly film - you are very isolated as a writer. If you're lucky, you have a good relationship with the director. Then you do make that development and come on set and be part of something. But ultimately, your work is kind of done by the time you come on set.

Many directors are approaching me with good scripts. I will concentrate on production and music.

Ann and I were the main writers in Heart. We had the leadership role, and the guys in the band sometimes had a hard time with that.

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system.

My role on 'Silicon Valley' was so small that I didn't have a lot of influence anyway in the show. There are four guys who really write that show and run that show and then six or eight hanging out in a room kicking in a few bits.

I probably won't direct the stories I am writing but will star in them.

I do a film only when I feel I will be comfortable with the set-up and other members of the team.