Justin Simien Quotes

When you're making a television show, it's about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.

I had done a directing producing job before on 'Big Day' and 'Jake in Progress,' and those are two shows where I directed the pilot and stayed with it in series.

I have respect for anyone who helps a creator put a great television show on the air.

One of the things that's fun about TV is it grows, and you set goals and aim towards stuff, and one of the writers has an idea, and you say, 'Ooh, that's so much cooler. Let's do that instead.' It's so much more fluid and organic that way, and that's the most fun part about it.

It's such a process to get a show off the ground initially. And then, to already have a second season announced is a dream come true for any actor.

We are not really privy to all that crazy stuff that goes on in the show. I go to work, eat, and talk about food. The wild things happen when we aren't around. I expected Top Chef to last three or four seasons and we are now shooting season ten.

I guarantee there's people who watch television who have no idea how complicated it is to make a television show.

Television is much more of a producer's writer's medium, so a lot of the time, when you're directing a television show, they have a color palette on set or a visual style and dynamic that's already been predetermined, and you just kind of have to follow the rules.

When I create a TV show, it's so that I can write it. I'm not an empire builder; my writing staff is usually a combination of two kinds of people - experts in the world the show is set in, and young writers who will not be unhappy if they're not writing scripts.

We shoot 'Hustle' for 12 to 16 weeks, so that's how long I'm here each year. I've always loved London. I lived here for three years back in the Seventies, when I did a TV series, 'The Protectors,' for Lew Grade.

I don't want to carry a network show. I don't want to give up 10 months, working 17 hours a day, up at five in the morning.

There have been times - and not just on 'The Newsroom,' but on 'The West Wing,' 'Sports Night,' 'Studio 60'... - where it was hard to look the cast and crew in the eye, when I put a script on the table that I knew just wasn't good enough.

My most frequent collaborators at S.N.L. are the incredibly gifted writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider!

Jeff Wachtel, who was the main reason our show came back, and also got picked up to begin with, is from the New York theater.

I loved doing 'Gilmore Girls.' I love Amy Sherman-Palladino. I'd do anything with her.

Alexis and I actually shot the very first scene of 'Gilmore Girls.' What I thought was fast was nowhere near what has become known as 'Gilmore pace.'

I worked on a show called 'West Wing' before. I didn't work with Aaron Sorkin, but he created the show and set the tenor of the show, which was you follow the words of the script perfectly because there's a dramaturgical thing behind it.

I essentially have always directed everything on my TV show without using that title; I edited and wrote all my stuff.

What's really amazing is that the showrunner who really got me my start in TV is Andrew Kreisberg. He brought me on to 'Arrow,' and he tracked me down because he was a fan of 'Punisher.'

Working on 'Open All Hours' had some unexpected perks, not least the attractions of the canteen at the BBC's rehearsal studios in West London.

I was fortunate to work on a few episodes of 'Barry' right before we shot 'Atlanta.' That was where I got my training wheels for action coverage.

We're having such a great time on 'Nashville' that building on the relationship seemed an obvious next step. Lionsgate is the perfect home for the kind of scripted television I want to produce and direct.

Sure, I came up under Mike White, and Miguel Arteta; I was Mike White's assistant on 'Dawson's Creek.'

That's the great thing about how 'SVU' works. They work with so many Broadway actors, they are very used to getting us out in time for the show.

Not many people get to create a television show that actually makes it on the air.