Paul Dano Quotes

When I get a script, it's the only time that I get to be an audience member with the first-time experience of that movie. That's the first and only time.

When you first read a script is the purest moment. That's when you can understand how an audience will ultimately receive it. The first reading of the script is so important because you're experiencing it all for the first time, and it's then that you really know if it's going to work or not.

Sometimes you do feel a script that glows in your hand the moment you start reading it. By page four of Shakespeare in Love, I said, 'I have to be in this movie.'

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

Sometimes when it comes to the iconic kind of moments, when I read the script for the first time, you get little goose bumps or something because it really is kind of exciting.

It's funny, because what happens to me when I read a script, when something grabs hold of me, I start getting these flashes of people or places or things or images.

I respond to a part just intuitively when I read a script.

It always starts with a script. I like to have plenty of time to read something, and I always like to read a paper copy. I hate reading it on email. I sit down with a script, and want to see how it hits me. It's an instinctive process.

I look for scripts that give me a gut feeling that this is going to work.

For me it's a very organic process. I read the script/hear a narration and pretty much know instantly if it's something I want to be a part of or not. It's really as simple as that.

Very rarely is there any confusion as to when a painting or a song is finished. You just know when it's done.

You think about taking audiences on a journey.

If I feel like it's a well-written script and if it speaks to me, it's something I want to do. I usually rely on my instincts when it comes to a script.

Oh, I had an idea for a pilot of my own at the time, and then Carl sent me about eight scripts and simply I threw my idea out the window because the writing was just so good.

I always think that the deal, once I do the script, sort of the experience I go through writing, which is everything you can imagine, but I always think it's the one thing I can do when I'm directing is say is that it's all about the actors, that I can say, 'We're all here to serve the actors.'

Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

When making a film, if I feel nothing in my body, I can't work. I have to touch. I have to feel. I never stop touching.

I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.

Every time I read a script, I see the movie in my head, and I try to see the best movie in my head because everybody interprets the movie differently.

When a script moves me, I find that I immediately understand a character. Of course not completely, but I do understand.

I've never had to pitch a movie to a studio. I usually just let people read the script, then I cast it. I always think pitching is for baseball.

To try to create a character without a whole lot of information can be taxing. At the same time, it's fun to just stay on your toes and let the next bit of dialogue come in, and turn the page as you read the next script and see what they have in store for you next.

The only time you actually are a spectator of your own work is the day you read the script.

When I saw 'Talk to Her' for the first time, I was crying out loud because I couldn't imagine that I was doing that film.

The seed of an idea laying dormant in an old sketchbook is fed the missing ingredient from a new experience. Trying to share some of these experiences, some of the wonders, is one of the reasons why I do books.