Lisa Cholodenko Quotes

I'm pursuing film and TV, and it's exciting because I feel I can write in almost any genre now.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.

Anyone who has an imagination can write a book - it's cheap to do - but movies are big money.

I've never read a screenplay in advance. You trust the artist.

I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for much the same reason that Henry Morgan selected the Spanish Main for his peculiar - and not dissimilar - sphere of operations.

I want to get into producing and writing more for myself - setting up my own films and seeing what kind of personal touch I can put on movies, as opposed to just being in them.

I just want to work on good scripts.

I like to produce my own movies.

I'm not saying I'm a writer, but I've been in movies for a long time, and I think I could write a script for a movie.

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

I definitely want to act and I want to sing. If those two fall through, I want to become a writer, probably, like a songwriter for other people, or a novel writer. I write a lot, and I read a lot. I like reading fiction.

As long as I can make lots of money in other businesses, I'll continue to subsidize my own work.

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.

I like the opportunity to make films.

Because television doesn't offer the kind of budget that a movie offers, you've got to be a little more careful where you spend the money to put the fiction in science.

I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.

During the '90s, a lot of us in the indie film world were not making our money off our movies. We were screenwriters doing scripts for hire for studios.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

I was asked to do a reading of 'G.B.F.' and I loved the script. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd read, but it took a year to get a green light for production.

Directing is something I've sort of always felt like I'd like to do at one point, and I thought the best way to start it is to write something myself or with someone and I'd go from there. My own material.

Seriously, you know - I love to write. I enjoy the process; I enjoy the different processes, because writing for film and television and graphic novels is all very different. So I've never had the feeling of, 'Oh, you have to do this one thing.'

When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.

Anybody can write a film script 'cuz it has been reduced to a formula.