Tony Gilroy Quotes

As a writer, it's very difficult to just hand your script over to someone else, especially if you have to watch them hurt it, and that's when I decided I would direct my own work.

I do like directing other people's material.

I've never actually directed anything I haven't made up. I've never adapted anything.

I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself.

I had written a script called 'Freed,' which I had wanted to direct.

There's one great script that hit my desk that I didn't change at all, and that was True Romance.

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.

To me, the most important thing is the script. I would never make a movie that I didn't write. I wouldn't know how to.

I find that with every script I get, I go, 'Who knew this? This is so cool!'

Writers are first directors. When directing our own scripts, we would have a better vision and clarity than directing the stories penned by others. I personally think that a writer's job is tough than a director's.

Writers are always sort of threatening to direct, and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

Interestingly enough, there is a really different dynamic when you're directing something that somebody else has written compared to when you're directing something that you've written. And there's a good and a bad side to it. I think the bad side is that you never feel the same level of connection to the material - you just don't.

I don't see myself directing things I don't write because, to me, directing was just an extension of the writing process.

You hate to see yourself do one draft of a script and then have somebody else come back in and change what you've done.

If you're directing, it doesn't really matter any more if it's going straight to TV - what matters is whether you have the resources to make a story that moves you.

When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a different way.

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 love being creative. I love acting, but I also love directing because you get to have a vision for the whole and bring that vision to fruition.

Some of my best experiences are with writer/directors. Guy Ritchie is one. I feel they have a clearer view of what they want to do. They haven't got to try and interpret someone's writing; it's all theirs. I really admire that.

As a screenwriter, you have to let go, and you have to hand your baby over and let it go off into the world, which is entirely appropriate.

From a writing point of view, you now have teams of screenwriters working with a director. What's lost in the process is the power of that one heart, brain, gut and soul that makes something an original piece of writing.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

I always write the script by myself.

I have seen too many screenwriters of promise become formula addicts and slaves to stop watch structure. Spend that time watching movies, reading screenplays, reading plays, and most importantly - write from your gut.

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.