Dallas Roberts Quotes

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

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.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business. Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while.

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

When you're coming up with new material, it's not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it's working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You're constantly rebuilding.

Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.

I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director's work.

There's a fairy story called the 'The Shoemaker and the Elves' where this old cobbler keeps leaving leather out overnight and wakes up the next day, and there's a new pair of shoes. Co-authoring is a little like that. You send off the manuscript to your partner, and a few days later, you check your email, and hey, there's more book in here!

There's an attitude that I have where I bring the art to the table and the writer brings the writing to the table, but neither of us brings the story to the table. The story is something that only happens with the combination of both of us.

I can only get to a certain point as I write and then I have individual conversations with everyone that I cast. I always do a rewrite based on the conversations.

When I was working on 'Deadwood', it was understood that the script was a work in progress, and when we got to set, everyone would kind of work on it together.

With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during "Young Frankenstein" - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.

Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again.

Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.

I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

I spent almost 3 months with Bergman, four hours every afternoon. We sat and went through the whole script. To be honest, most of the time we talked about life and other different things. It was really a wonderful time.

As a filmmaker, I'm very collaborative. I don't pretend to know everything that is needed to make a movie. What I like to do is get together with a group of people, starting with developing the story and bounce around ideas.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

I think about my films for a long time, maybe years, but I write them in days.

I think the community that's created within a writers' room is a very interesting topic.

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.

In the case of 'Blood Stone,' the producers, EON, Michael Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, David Wilson and Gregg Wilson, had an idea for a story and had a lot of it done. And I came in, worked with them, fleshed it out.

Because I work in television, I always knew that I loved working with writers. It's very collaborative. You're always in a room full of writers.