Courtney A. Kemp Quotes

It's only when you're privy to the conversations and a member of the production team that you can direct the course of a series and make sure it flourishes.

I always knew that it was going to be an uphill climb to replace Letterman from complete obscurity with no experience, but I think I had to go through it to know exactly what a titanic effort that was going to be.

I've been in various roles in TV - writer, producer, associate director.

TV is where writers get to tell interesting stories. Because writers, for the most part, run television.

My time as showrunner on The Walking Dead has been an amazing experience, but after I finish season three, it’s time to move on. I have told the stories I wanted to tell and connected with our fans on a level that I never imagined. It doesn’t get much better than that. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey.

I was on 'The Shield' for a year before 'Crash' came out, and it was like doing an independent film every week.

In the TV world, we are seeing a lot more power going to the writer. I sense it is a writer's medium.

I probably have more words to say in 'Mr. Robot' than I've had in my entire career put together.

I know I am eventually going to want to write or produce.

I thank God I was a reporter before I became a writer.

'The Full Monty' was my first feature script, and I wasn't that skilled at it.

The fact is that television, even before the movies, offered the chance to control our work and to get to do it again when we did something right. So television has always been better to writers than any other medium for a long time.

A big part of the job of being a showrunner is, in my way of thinking, being a good communicator because there's really no other way to have hope for getting what you want, at the end of the day.

I think that there have definitely been points when I've had to fight to move my career in a different direction. I think, 2012, I did a few movies that touched on a darker side, and those are movies I'd been wanting to make and stories I'd been wanting to tell for a while. So I think it definitely takes work to move genres.

There's no better place to do a longform project than HBO. I loved the creative teams I got a chance to work with.

I was playing a lot of bigger, sort-of-comedic characters in slightly heightened realities, and it had been so fun and fulfilling for a long time. But it got to a point where I just felt like I didn't have that in me anymore.

I'm probably only going to make 10 movies, so I'm already planning on what I'm going to do after that. That's why I'm counting them. I have two more left. I want to stop at a certain point. What I want to do, basically, is I want to write novels, and I want to write theatre, and I want to direct theatre.

'House of Cards' opened some doors. I've been able to tackle some diverse stories and characters.

When I got the job with Fox, I said 'God, are you sure?' I know nothing about politics; I've been covering car accidents and street closures and the pothole patrol in my hometown.

'Studio 60' was a magical experience, as I directed six episodes, was a series regular and a producer... Dream job.

I've virtually grown up in the television industry.

I think a natural evolution for me would be to try to transfer over into the film and TV world and start playing different characters. Hopefully, that way, I can keep entertaining my fans that are fans of me, in different avenues and different spotlights. It's a natural evolution.

The best comedies are the ones where the person who's in charge is the one with the vision who's said, 'I'm staying with this till the very end.'

I make it happen. Who bought Alex Haley's book 'Roots' for TV? Me. I hired the director, hired the writer. I put them all together. I'm like the chef. If I mix all the ingredients right, it's going to taste terrific. If I don't, it's not going to come out good.

Showrunning is when you're the constant creative voice in the show. For a year-and-a-half, you are working on the scripts, you're fine-tuning them, you're the final say on the edit, the music and the cast.