Bennett Miller Quotes

'Curb' is 100 percent improvised, which is wild. I'd never done anything like that.

I love starting a track in one place and not knowing where it's going to end up.

I do get very involved in making a scene work without giving too much thought about how it affects the overall, which I think is hard to know in any case.

What happens in improv is you create your own storyline.

In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially - but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted 'Timecode.' It can become entirely indulgent: actors smashing crockery and competing verbally.

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.

You don't know what inspires you. You like to think you know what inspires you, but in the final analysis I don't think you really do. It's great to look at a blank sheet of paper, you know, and walk up to an instrument and not know what's gonna happen. It's the most challenging thing I do.

I allow an area for improvisation because the chemical things actors bring to stories make it not work.

I'm convinced to do improv. All you have to do is listen to what people are saying to you, and then just add more information to what they've just said. That's all there is to improv, but it's the hardest thing to do.

It's a lot of fun to be a part of films that you don't exactly know how they're going to turn out.

I know Charlie Kaufman really well, for instance. Charlie Kaufman starts a story, and he has no freaking idea where he's going. None. Zero. And he doesn't want to know, because there's a little bit of death in that.

I can't wait to do a fully improvised script again, to find people who are really comfortable and into it. It's about the capabilities of the people you're working with, what are their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the most brilliant actors need the spine of the text to work off of, and there's no shame in that; they're actors, not writers.

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

We have over an hour of footage with Ken Marino. Same with Kevin Smith. Because you never know, when you let people who are so talented at improv go, what you're going to get. You don't want to strangle them with your own words, because probably what they're going to say is way better.

Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do - that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

Sometimes the character will go into a completely different direction than I expected once the cameras start rolling. That's what I love about what I do.

It's not so much that I got that idea at some point, it came up naturally because of the improvisational nature of the story I was telling.

With solos, I don't like to be too prepared going in - I like to surprise myself.

90 percent of the records I make are spontaneous.

With 'The Crazy Ones,' we were really encouraged to improv and go off script.

In our case, we have no script. So the only people we can work with are people who have been working with us in the past, and they know we are going to do something; it's kind of a trust.

I love art so much because of curiosity. At the start of a painting, I know 10 percent of what the painting will be, and then I have to improvise the whole thing.

In the Indian system of filmmaking, you don't plan well in advance, stick to a storyboard, or deliver only the scripted lines.

What I love about jazz is the improvisation, the fact that you never know what's going to happen next.

Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown.