Bret Easton Ellis Quotes

I think books and movies are going to go a long way together in the future. I think we writers are very important material for directors.

If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in.

I have no interest whatsoever in pursuing acting or becoming a mogul. I love writing and directing; I see those two jobs as the most critical in the making of a film.

In the movies, the writer is just the servant, the employee.

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

I got it into my head that I was going to be starring in movies that I wrote, so that's what I did. I stopped acting in all things, and I wrote my first script, which was optioned a week after I finished it.

I've been writing plays since the seventies and only came to moviemaking when I basically realized that I needed some money to pay the rent. I started to watch films with an eye to figuring out how to write them.

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 love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.

The filmmaking process is a team effort. A screenwriter cannot possibly do exactly what he wants as if he was writing a novel.

Pretty much, the writer's in charge in theater. Of course you're in charge with the director, but no one can change your words. People can give you notes, but you don't have to take them. In Hollywood you take them and you cash your check and that's your job. It's very different.

For 'So Cold the River,' I'm actually working on adapting the book with Scott Silver, who was just nominated for an Oscar for 'The Fighter,' and who also wrote '8 Mile,' which I think is a terrific screenplay. The chance to work with Scott is a tremendous pleasure and I'm learning a lot.

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

I moved to L.A. to write and direct. I had no intentions of being in front of the camera.

As far as writing or directing a film, I've worked with enough people who have done that that I know it's just a whole other level of responsibility and chaos and murder that I could not see happening. For now, I'm just going to see what comes. I know what I like and what direction I have.

To be quite honest, I've been very blessed when I've worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.

I sat down to take a break from writing a book and wrote a spec feature that would end up being the movie 'Lies & Alibis' with Steve Coogan.

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

I like writing for movies. It's nice to be alone working on fiction in your room, and then it's nice to be in a room with a bunch of people working on a movie.

When I'm writing a movie, it's usually pretty close to what the movie is going to be, which is just a luxury of being a writer-director.

You get spoiled as a novelist because you get to be the director and the editor, and you play all the parts, but as a screenwriter, you are a bit down the ladder.

I definitely want to do more movies, and I'm also a writer, so I have a few screenplays that I'm working on, one of them based off my one-woman show that I used to do in New York. Two of the screenplays I've written by myself, and then I'm also working on one with my writing partner, Tom Riley, who's in London.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos - thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you're writing and you don't like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there's something you don't like, that's tough.

I'm developing some screenplays at the moment with my Australian producer.

I want to produce and direct and write one day.