Curtis Hanson Quotes

It's not just about acting. I love film, I'm a director now, I love writing, I love producing, I love having a company that makes films and to be prolific and have a place to put all the ideas that are constantly bubbling up inside of me and that don't let me sleep at night.

I hope to be involved in a successful movie script.

When you write and direct your own film, you basically know exactly what you want. Or you hope to. For the studio, it actually can make life a little easier, because if you have a bunch of questions, they only need to call one person.

I started writing screenplays myself and eventually directing.

And James L. Brooks then sort of became our mentor, brought us out to Los Angeles and worked on the script for a year with us. We learned so much working with him - just being able to spend time with him, the quality of his mind, the things he comes up with and says. I think Wes [Anderson] and I could go to dinner tonight and spend the whole dinner thinking and talking about things that Jim has said to us over the years.

You have to write a lot of scripts to get any scripts that are worth making.

I never had a movie that I wanted to do turned down in my whole life. I always write the script first so it speaks for itself.

It's not often I get to do a film that turns out good. Plus, there just aren't that many great directors out there. There are a thousand different decisions that need to be made with each script and it's the good directors that can make those decisions. It's a long and complicated process in regards to what looks good on paper. Working on a bad film can be fun too. It can be a good exercise that gets you writing.

Suzanne [Collins] was very involved in the development of the script. She wrote the first draft. She was very involved with Billy Ray, when he wrote his draft.

I like writing for other people. I love it. It's great because you write it and then you hand it off to someone else. But in terms of directing, anything I direct will be something I've written or re-written. I'm in no crazy rush to direct.

I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director. I spent a lot of time for no money trying to teach myself how to write a script. It always felt like everybody was looking the other way and sneaking that script through the system, but it did well later on video and got another chance.

I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet.

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.

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.

I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.

He wasn't directing it, of course, so I didn't work with Hitchcock.

Very often, things that people may think come from the writer, very often don't. There's a lot of cooks in the kitchen when it comes to making a movie. When you hear a line of dialogue that sounds kind of tinny, it's pretty easy to cite the screenwriter. But there's a lot of stuff that goes into making a movie.

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish.

The great thing about film is you start and finish. It's a journey that lasts so long, TV lasts a long time.

During the late '50s, I had worked on the script of Ben-Hur in an office next to that of the producer Sam Zimbalist.

I've become friends with Michael Mann and Oliver Stone; I've seen those guys work and that was great to see.

Do you know how long it took me to write 'For a Few Dollars More'? Nine days.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.

The script for 'Thirteen' is tight, and not because of the now-famous six day writing spree, but more because it started out as 15 pages longer.