Allison Janney Quotes

You know, I always say musicians, they can do it on their own. They can practice their violin on their own. A painter can paint by himself. A writer can write by himself. But an actor needs a group, and the hardest thing about expanding your ability and your craft is to have a group to do it with that is of a caliber where you can grow even more.

For years I've wanted to work with this guy, so to actually write at the top of my scripts "Empress, Script by Mark Millar, Art by Stuart Immonen" is an absolute pleasure.

I've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto. One of my closest friends is a composer, Paul Moravec, and a few years ago, Paul and I were at lunch, and I said to him, "you really have to write an opera." So, he says very casually to me, "I'll do it if you write the libretto." Well, little did I know that the within a couple of years we would end up getting a commission from the Santa Fe Opera to write an opera together, "The Letter," which turned out to be the most successful commissioned opera in the history of the Santa Fe Opera.

I don't attribute an actor's great success to their own individual performance when it's something as collaborative as a movie.

Any film, or to me any creative endeavour, no matter who you're working with, is, in many cases, a wonderful experience.

My husband and I oddly have worked together a couple of times. We did a 'Veronica Mars' episode together. We didn't work together, but we were both in 'Ghost World.' We had a theater company in L.A., for a bunch of years. So, we've worked together a fair amount, and it's always just great fun.

Sometimes the creating that we do is creating a platform that allows other creative people to pitch in.

In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead.

Film is a collaborative art form. If you're not being collaborative, you probably shouldn't be working in film. You don't do it on your own. People who understand that, cultivate that, get the best results.

I care a lot about who I'm working with as directors and other actors.

Nothing's ever easy about composing for other people's projects, but I like it. I've been lucky to have worked with adventurous directors who trust me.

For the last 10 years, I've been working with Donald Glover and Ryan Coogler, and we've put down so much time really trying to make the best that we can, whether it's a movie, a film score, or a song.

Joel Little and I have this certain chemistry we have when we work together.

I've always liked playing with somebody else and collaborating, just to get out of my own head all the time. Everybody does, but artists especially, we torture ourselves. So it's good for me to immerse myself in somebody else's work.

I only ever asked two people to work with me as a partner. One was Paul McCartney and the other Yoko Ono. Paul and me were the Beatles.

There is plenty of people I'd love to collaborate with, would love to produce with, would love to write songs with.

Filmmaking is such a collaboration. At a certain point, I suppose you do have to let go and trust the people you're working with.

When you work with people and are friends with them also, you have more of a shorthand. I think people relax more and it opens the door to being less precious and trying things that, when you're shooting and writing, it becomes much more collaborative - therefore funny, hopefully.

You go through your career and you find people and cast who you love and you go through and keep them and you never want to let them go because you have a great repertory with them.

I just love working with actors, and I love working with writers, working with designers.

When I just write something, it's usually because I love it, I love the material, but I feel like I really need a creative partner to crack it. And I certainly need and have a lot of creative partners as a director.

Film is a collection of many mediums and collaboration and you're only as strong as the people you're working with - and everybody owns their mediums.

TV writing is for people who hate being alone more than they hate writing.

Advertising agencies come to you and they are great fans, they are great creative people themselves, but they ask you to do something, and you say, "Well, we will, we'll create something together." And it is work. It's like you're doing something and they're saying, "Change this" and "Change that." It's not hard, horrible work, but creatively it's not just freedom.

I hope I never have to stop acting. I love it. But, I think the coolest thing about acting is working with these amazing people all the time, and writing represented a new way to meet those people and to tell stories, at the same time, which I've always wanted to do, and to tell jokes. I love comedy, so writing was a way of getting these jokes that I had down on the page.