Kalki Koechlin Quotes

The best way to make a show that's going to resonate is to make a show that you'd love.

With indies, all they have is their script and it's very important to them. The characters are better drawn, the stories more precise and the experience greater than with studio films where sometimes they fill in the script as they're shooting.

I honestly feel like we never had a bad episode by TV standards. Every week I felt there were so many strong components of the show, especially the writing.

Theater is great because you're able to tell a narrative arc without a break. I think it's more about the material and whether what we get offered is good.

I don't really make movies with an intention other than asking myself, 'Do I love the character, and do I love the story?'

We could make the most beautiful film in the world, but if it doesn't have a heart beating underneath it, then no one's going to be interested.

Early on, many years ago when we started 'Avatar,' the executive that we were working with said to make the sad scenes sadder, the funny scenes funnier, the scary scenes scarier. That was kind of permission to do what we felt comfortable with.

When I go for a project, I wonder what underpinning a project will have that's going to give the audience some emotional access to it.

I just wrapped 'Eclipse' yesterday and the last scene we shot is probably my favorite thus far. I finally got to tell my story, in a very gentle yet elaborate way.

A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don't.

I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the only way to fill two hours, or to phrase things, or to order thoughts, or order ideas.

Tone is everything in TV.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

You can sustain visual beauty and innovative visual ideas for a certain length of time, but in a two-hour experience, which is really what movies are, usually audiences - whether they know it or not - most want an emotional connection to character.

At the premieres, I always watch the audience. If a child asks to go to the bathroom, I know I've failed.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.

I don't have a favorite genre. I love to work and live vicariously through every character. It's all about trying to bring the character to life and get the story across in a way that resonates with the audience. It's always interesting and challenging in a gratifying and unique way.

I'm a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.

Audiences are very willing to be taken somewhere, and to ask an audience beforehand what it wants is probably, I think, a mistake. Much better you should tell them what you want and hope they agree with it.

What I've realized is that a film operates both on the intellectual and emotional levels, and if you can find a way to tell a riveting story and draw ideas out of that, it's very powerful.

I love the intimacy and the passion and the danger that go into independent filmmaking. Because it comes out of a creative necessity. It comes from people who really want to make a movie and want to make a difference and want to grab an audience by the gullet and show them something different.

Possibly because I did start off as a journalist, my starting point has always been that you've got to keep an audience with you. Whatever you're doing, you always want a script to be a page-turner. It's very important never, ever, to feel above that.

It's wonderful to be able to sit down and write a play.

At least I want to be making films that are somehow born out of me that are stories I want to tell. The challenge is figuring out how to do it where you can make them personal, yet still deliver to an audience a film experience that is satisfying and emotional, and that's what I'm trying to do.

My role is to just tell the highest degree of truth with every character and every story. From there, I have no clue whatsoever how things are going to turn out.